


Offer Up Our Hearts

by tackytiger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Career Fic, Curse Breaker Harry Potter, Diplomat Draco Malfoy, Fairies, Irish Folklore, Light Angst, M/M, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Original Magical Characters - Freeform, Politics, Secret Relationship, Snogging, Travel, magical beings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-07-30 22:48:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20104891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tackytiger/pseuds/tackytiger
Summary: Harry Potter has a very nice life, thank you  very much. He's a top Curse-Breaker with a lucrative Ministry contract, and exciting prospects ahead.Sometimes he does wish that he had time to pursue something official with Draco Malfoy - they're half in love with each other, after all, and a great team (in and out of bed), though Draco is still one of the most infuriating people he knows.And when Draco asks Harry to accompany him on a diplomatic mission to the mysterious Sidhe fairies in Ireland, Harry agrees to lend his expertise. Especially since the Sidhe diplomat is a handsome fairy prince who's also in love with Draco.Join Malfoy and Potter in a daring tale of espionage, politics, intrigue, and frog-hunting!Excerpt:"Can you feel it?" Malfoy's voice is hushed, and when Harry stops and justfeelsfor a minute, he notices the insidious creep of magic in his very bones. It's an old magic, cold and remote...It feels like it's running through the very earth itself, like it's been summoned from solid rock and damp soil, like it carries a memory of ages past."That's fairy magic," Malfoy whispers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PottersPink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PottersPink/gifts).

> Written for the Trope "Career Fic" for the 2019 H/D Tropes Exchange Fest
> 
> I was assigned Career!fic as my Trope.
> 
> To my giftee, ViridianJane: thank you for your considered and interesting prompts. You offered so many exciting ideas, and I tried to incorporate a few different elements of your preferences and suggestions.
> 
> I loved the idea of exploring issues of communication and consent, especially in the context of a relationship between two people who haven't had emotionally healthy or fulfilling upbringings.
> 
> I hope you enjoy Diplomat!Draco and Curse-Breaker!Harry - I tried to weave the stories of their career paths through the piece, and show how their motivations and actions are shaped by their work.
> 
> I also read your gorgeous Selkie piece, and in return I offer you some fairies, and a Púca! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Thank you to K, who read a very early draft of the first section and made some invaluable suggestions. 
> 
> Thank you to B, who always just _gets it_, and who is so generous with her time, talent, and support.
> 
> And huge thanks to M, who did a superb job on the beta reading. She truly is a divine creature of laser-sharp focus and encouragement. Also, Kingsley in a tutu is her genius creation. Any remaining errors are most certainly my own.
> 
> Finally, thank you to the Tropes Fest team for all the support and encouragement, and for facilitating this feat of organisational skill. It's been a pleasure to take part.
> 
> (There are some Irish words used throughout the fic - I've added a—very rough!—pronunciation guide in the endnotes).
> 
> **Disclaimer:** All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.

Harry Potter has a very nice life, if he does say so himself. He supposes that it could have gone either way really, after he defeated the most powerful Dark wizard of his time, and saw so many of his friends and enemies and family members perish in front of him.

He could have had a life punctuated by screaming nightmares, waking up sweat-blighted and taut with horror in the bed he shared with, well, no one. He could have spent his days chasing the ghosts of everyone he had failed to save. He could have tried to drown the dreams in litres of Firewhisky and ended up sinking himself. 

In fact, he had tried that life, for a bit, straight after the war. Luckily, he had found that his persistent friends, a good Mind Healer, and some carefully-managed serotonin balancing potions were the rafts he needed to get himself back onto dry land. He mostly sticks to Butterbeer even now, and the nightmares will never leave him for good, but he can say that he's happy, these days, and mean it.

He could have gone into Auror training, used his name and his scar and his reputation to climb the ladder fast, treading carelessly on the fingers of all the other trainees behind him. He could have made Head Auror before he was thirty, and from there it would only be a small leap sideways and a bit of glad-handing later and he'd have been running the DMLE, or worse, the whole Ministry.

He could have married Ginny, and been a real Weasley finally. He could have had lots of clever, freckled children—magical children—who never would have had to wonder why they could feel sparks fizzing and crackling under their fingertips, and who ate cereal straight from the box, and who never blinked awake from yet another bad dream into silent terror, in a cupboard so profoundly dark that they were never quite sure if they still had their eyes shut.

That life wouldn't have been too bad at all, he sometimes thought. But Ginny was too fierce and bright to be married off to a childhood sweetheart who still saw her as more of a sister than a great love. Luckily for them both, she had been sensible enough to realise that early on, and now she's very happily not married to the Seeker for the Kenmare Kestrels, without any freckled children to worry about, and dividing her spare time between Wales and Ireland.

Harry supposes that there are plenty of different ways his life could have gone, but on the whole he thinks that he made the right choices in the end. And choices they were, because he's had more than enough of prophecies and schemes and expectations and destinies, thanks. Harry Potter is, finally, his own man.

His Curse-Breaking business is doing well—not that he particularly needs the money, of course. Still, he wants as large a lump as possible for the Gringotts vault he's filling up for Teddy when he finishes Hogwarts next year. And Harry has found that, after years of deprivation and too-big, too-grey clothes, he has developed a bit of a taste for Muggle fashion. He doesn't go mad or anything like that, but a good coat and a well-made suit are investments, after all. And when travelling incognito around Europe (and beyond, sometimes, if the job is interesting enough), it makes the stealth side of his job much easier if he looks the part.

Even Hermione had been surprised that he decided to go into Curse-Breaking. The Arithmancy side of things had been a bit hairy at first, and Harry still prefers to take on modern curses that are based more on technical Charmwork rather than lexicographical or numerical formats. Regency era and upwards he is fine with; any of the Ancients—Egypt, Greece, Rome—he tends to pass along to colleagues. His Defence skills obviously come in handy, but he found that, when he had the time to study what he enjoyed rather than what he would need to save his own life—and with a bit more focus on balancing and refining his Charmwork—he has a touch of finesse when it comes to fiddly magic. 

His real problem had been in controlling and focusing the deep well of his magic, at first. Turns out that his lethal _Expelliarmus_ hadn't just been a lucky break—there was actually a rather overpowering level of force in his casting. The trouble was, he had been using it as a blunt instrument for most of his teenage years—a sort of "I came, I saw, I blasted" approach that had, in fairness, done the job when needed. 

When he had the time to explore (and no combat magic to master) he realised that the real skill would come from channelling his power to use it as a tool rather than a weapon. Subtlety of casting didn't come naturally to him, but Harry Potter wasn't exactly afraid of hard work. He learned to cast as if picking a lock on a safe, instead of rigging it with explosives and blowing the bloody door off. He works with precision now, a deftness born of years of practice; Harry is a modest man, but he knows you'd be hard-pressed to find a better Curse-Breaker for delicate and finicky work. 

He was confident, when he eventually took on the Ministry contract, that they were hiring his company purely on the basis of skill and merit, and very little to do with his name. That was a very good feeling. And though he hadn't wanted a Ministry job for himself, he really enjoys getting to visit the Ministry regularly, and dropping in to see his many friends who _have_ ended up working there. 

He's a frequent visitor to the Auror department and the Wizengamot, of course, as well as the Department of Xenology.

Xenology had always been known as the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures in Harry's day, but the department has recently undergone a complete overhaul, from name to ethos, and is now under the auspices of the Xenology department, which promotes and facilitates good relations and co-operation between all persons or Beings of magical means and inclinations. Such Beings now include the magical races which had formerly fallen under the categories of beasts or creatures, including goblins, werewolves, merfolk, house-elves, and vampires. 

"And really, Potter, to think that for so long we presumed to have responsibility for the 'control' of these Magical Beings, and referred to them in such derogatory terms, as if they're somehow _less than_ wizards." 

Those were the words of the man who heads up the Magical Beings Liaison Committee, and whose official title is Xenological Ambassador. Harry just calls him Malfoy.

Harry has heard variations on this speech more times than he can count—Malfoy is a passionate advocate for equality for all magical races, and never passes up the opportunity to have a rant about outdated attitudes, ingrained prejudice, and the wizarding sense of superiority. 

Yes, Harry has a lot of experience of Malfoy's opinions: over many drinks on pub night, while Malfoy gets more flushed and demonstrative with every Firewhisky, and Harry hides his embarrassingly affectionate smiles behind his glass of Butterbeer; over lunch in the Ministry canteen, Malfoy's pristine robes of office hiding the line of his swallow as he shovels down a cheese toastie, talking politics in an outraged whisper around every bite; and a few times, memorably, in bed.

Not that they manage to make it to a bed very often, and even on those rare occasions, there is never much pillow talk involved. 

No, they definitely don't get to be together as often as Harry would like; they are both just so busy, with so much to take care of _all the time_. They both travel a lot for work, and despite years of friendship behind them (a friendship so long and important that Harry has almost forgotten that it was supposed to be an unlikely one) they aren't often in the same place long enough to get together properly. 

When they _are_ both free at the same time outside of work, there often isn't the opportunity for much more than a proper flying session and reciprocal handjobs in the shower cubicle afterwards, Malfoy flashing the intoxicating gleam of a genuine, delighted smile before sliding his hand over Harry's mouth to muffle the noises he cannot seem to stop making whenever Malfoy touches him _like that_. 

Of course, there are dark corners of parties, and toilet stalls, and grotty alleyways—Malfoy's top-level security charms are always handy. Sometimes they end up doing nothing more than walking home together after a night out, and spending forty minutes re-learning each other's mouths up against one of their front doors, before one or the other of them pulls away reluctantly and pleads an early start the next morning. 

They understand each other, that's the thing. There are no expectations or demands on each other. They love each other, Harry knows that they both know that—not that they would ever say it. They _definitely_ fancy each other rotten. They have never declared it anything as official as a relationship, or a partnership, though it has outlasted by far any of Harry's "proper" relationships, and it's more affectionate, loving, and respectful than most people's marriages, Harry thinks happily. 

They send each other a lot of Owls when they're on work trips. They Firecall just to say goodnight to each other. On the rare occasions that they are free, they're together. Their friends can't have missed that there is _something_ going on, but since Harry and Malfoy don't need to talk about it, everyone had stopped asking them about it long ago. The press has never even picked up on it, though Harry wonders if that's anything to do with Malfoy's Ministry influence rather than the _Prophet's_ newfound scruples about personal privacy.

Sometimes, when he thinks about it, Harry wonders what it would be like to have a partner, a husband or wife. But when he really considers it, he realises that he doesn't want to bother with anyone except Malfoy. And he's not pining, by any means. He isn't hoping for more than Malfoy is willing to give. He isn't stuck for other offers, either.

No, it was just that he isn't fond of all the dancing around that sex and relationships involve. Malfoy is straightforward. Harry knows him well enough that he can read his mood in the line of his shoulders or the set of his jaw. Harry can rely on Malfoy to tell him where to touch, how hard to thrust, when to pull back. He loves that Malfoy can tell when Harry just wants to be pushed into a corner and driven mad with kiss after demanding kiss; or when Harry wants to see Malfoy under him, with sweat-damp hair and shirt pushed off his shoulders and the marks from Harry's mouth livid and proclamatory on the tender column of his throat; or when Harry wants a kebab and someone to walk him home and leave him turned on and giddy from a filthy kiss under a lamppost.

Everything is easy, with Malfoy, though never ever boring. It's practically perfect, really. And if Harry sometimes allows himself to wish that Malfoy would stay over more often, and allow Harry to wake him with kisses on his fragrant, bed-warm skin, or even just eat breakfast with him, well… Harry has learned the value of compromise over the years. He's happy with what he has, because it's enough, for enough of the time. 

Their paths don't cross that often in a professional capacity, despite the fact that Harry is the direct liaison from the Curse-Breaking team to the Ministry. Therefore, it comes as a bit of a surprise when his usual weekly catch-up session with his contacts from the DMLE is hijacked by an officious and formal Xenological Diplomacy Coordination Committee. 

Technically, as part of his contract, Harry is available to consult with any department in need of his expertise. He then either takes on the job himself, or passes it along to one of his employees.

In practice, however, it's really only the Aurors that ever need him on a regular basis (with the odd request from Magical Accidents), so the meetings tend to be with the Head of the Auror division. Happily, this happens to be Ron, and he mostly brings his deputy Jadzia Deriggs along. They usually take it in turns to bring lunch, and it ends up being far more fun than a meeting ought to be.

It doesn't seem like quite as much fun when the door opens just as Harry is gobbling a massive spoonful of pepperpot while simultaneously roaring laughing at one of Ron's stories about Rose. The open door admits not one, not two, but _three_ members of the Xenology team, all in pristine office robes and carrying notepads and quills. 

Malfoy brings up the rear, and only Harry knows him well enough to pick up the thread of amusement in his voice as he shakes hands and introduces his team. He's in inky blue robes so dark they are almost black, tapered at the waist, and slashed at the sleeves to show a flash of feather-light white silk shirt. Harry has a vivid and very enticing memory of a night about three weeks before—Malfoy laughing his unguarded, gleeful laugh as Harry pinned him to the couch and spelled every button right off that shirt, in his haste to get at Malfoy's skin.

He swallows hard, eyes dropping helplessly to where the collar of the shirt lies smooth against Malfoy's throat. Malfoy has obviously had the shirt repaired, though judging by the merest flicker of a wink that he throws at Harry, he knows exactly what Harry is thinking about, the bastard. 

Well, Harry is at work now, and he's going to be professional about things, so he gives Malfoy his broadest smile, Vanishes his half-eaten bowl of stew, and slings his smart robes back on. Malfoy can't quite hide the way his eyes run from Harry's mouth to his shoulders to where his hands are ever so slightly too slowly pushing the brass buttons home at his throat. 

Two can play at that game, Harry thinks smugly.

The meeting goes well for about one minute. It's after Harry hears Malfoy's reason for attending that things really go downhill. 

It's remarkable, really, the way Harry could be simultaneously roaringly attracted to, and utterly infuriated by, Draco Malfoy. Ten more minutes into the meeting, and everyone else has fallen silent. Harry is on his feet leaning into Malfoy's face, his voice a low, furious growl. His only consolation is that Malfoy, too, is standing to argue back, though his face is a careful blank, his mobile and expressive mouth flattened into implacability, and his gaze sliding coolly from Harry's. 

"I've already told you, Potter. This might be _merely_ an ambassadorial visit, but it's of vital diplomatic importance. You _are_ necessary to its success and that's that. Do you know how long I've been working towards establishing an accord with the Sidhe fairies?"

Harry can feel the creeping spread of rage in his magic,can almost hear the outraged fizz of it in his fingertips. He takes a steadying breath.

"Malfoy," he begins reasonably. A strong start, he thinks. "Are you really trying to tell me that you are expecting me to _abandon_ my business over May Day, which as you know is one of my busiest times of the year, and is _next week_, by the way, in order to accompany you on some work jolly to _Ireland_ to meet up with some fairies? You must be joking." 

Well, that is about as reasonable as can be expected to be about this mad scheme of Malfoy's, Harry thinks. He's glad to see that Malfoy is finally looking a bit pink and cross, though the smooth mask is still mostly in place.

"This is not a _jolly_, Potter. This is the most ground-breaking and important diplomatic coup since the Werewolf Accords were ratified back in 2000. And it's a huge honour to be invited in May; Bealtaine is the Sidhe folk's most sacred festival. As far as we're aware, no living wizard has ever attended their Fire Feast before. You should be _thrilled_ to be invited, even at such late notice. I know I am," Malfoy finishes breathlessly. 

Harry shakes his head slightly. He loves how Malfoy falls into his work so thoroughly, hands flying in excitement and mouth working as though he has too much to say. But he can't allow this…fondness…he has for Malfoy to dictate his career choices. He's dimly aware that Ron, Jadzia, and Malfoy's underlings are sitting quietly, either looking bemused or scribbling notes frantically. Harry hopes they're not making a transcript of the conversation. 

"Look, Malfoy, it would be different if you could justify bringing a Breaker along for the trip. Then I could understand why you'd want the most senior member of the team with you. But you're telling me that you want me to go along in my _public_ capacity? Harry Potter the war hero, all decked out in fancy dress robes, with my lovely medals nice and shiny?" Harry is practically spitting now, barely containing the roil and thrust of his magic. 

Malfoy at least has the grace to look abashed at this. "The little we know about the Sidhe suggests that they are obsessed with power. We know they keep tabs on us, that they're fully cognizant of everything that goes on in our world. If Weasley here weren't in law enforcement, I'd be asking him to strap on the Order of Merlin and come with us too, but it would be a potential insult to bring any sort of police presence. We have to demonstrate trust. And we need you, not just to honour them by presenting our highest decorated war hero and saviour of the wizarding world, but because you're a wellspring of natural magical instinct. You know you're a bloody powerhouse, Potter. The Sidhe are finely attuned to that. They'll take it as a tribute to their importance. We _need_ this."

Here he pauses, throat working and face pale as bone. He looks Harry in the eye and his voice is low and steady as he says, "I assure you, Potter, that I will endeavour to fully appraise you of the political importance of this visit at our next meeting." And there is a note of warning and imprecation in his voice, barely a wingbeat in the still air of the diplomatic jargon, but Harry picks up on it. Malfoy has something else to tell him, but for some reason he can't or won't mention it here. 

"Fine," Harry barks out as he holds Malfoy's gaze. "I'll pencil it into the diary, and brief my team on all the work they'll have to take on in my absence."

Malfoy's smile breaks like the sun over stones, and Harry finds himself grinning back helplessly. 

"That's good, Potter. Just as well really, as Shacklebolt has already signed off on it and sent a memo to your office with the assignment. As Minister, he has final say over your contractual obligations. This was just a courtesy call, really." 

And he's gone in a swirl of robes and one last glint of what looks like something close to laughter, as Harry splutters in impotent frustration.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Harry spends the next three days in briefing meetings with his team, complaining vociferously to Shacklebolt about his assignment, being gently laughed at by Shacklebolt in return, and brushing up on his knowledge of natural magic. 

It's a stressful three days, and when Malfoy comes over for a takeaway one evening, Harry can see that he's having a tricky week of it too. 

Malfoy is sitting on Harry's couch and he's almost translucent with tiredness. His skin is milk-pale, the muscles in his cheek drawn tight, the faint expression lines around his eyes more prominent. He's tucked himself into a corner of the couch, bolstered by the padded armrest and balancing his biryani precariously on one of Harry's favourite cushions. Under his work robes (long discarded over the back of a chair) he's wearing an infinitesimally less dressy work outfit than normal—his concession to the Ministry's enthusiastic adoption of the Muggle tradition of Casual Friday. Under the open top button of his shirt (a heavy, cream cotton affair that manages to look breathtakingly expensive and effortlessly smart), Harry can just about follow with his eyes the coy invitation of Malfoy's jutting collarbone. Malfoy has his sleeves rolled to reveal the golden sheen of his strong forearms, and his trousers are of a well-worn tweed that Harry knows from experience is touchably soft. He looks pared back and young and comfortable and devastatingly himself. Harry wants to lick him. 

Instead, he pins himself to the opposite end of the couch and concentrates on his chana chaat. He can tell that Malfoy has something to tell him—something about the unofficial side of their official state visit to the Sidhe kingdom, Harry presumes. He knows from experience that if he licks any part of Malfoy once, it'll only lead to much more licking. And while he can't deny the appeal of that, he knows that they need to stay focused. They only have the weekend, really, to do all the preparation they need to do for this trip.

"Right, Malfoy—spit it out. What was it that you weren't telling me in that meeting?"

"Oh, you picked up on that, did you?" He's pleased-looking and slightly pink in the cheeks, though his eyes shift away from Harry's questioning look. 

Malfoy clears his throat and sets his mouth, as though he's made his decision, though his gaze is still oblique and thoughtful as he begins to speak.

"How much do you actually know about the Sidhe as a society, Potter?"

Harry thinks about lying, but Malfoy would _know_, so he shrugs instead.

"Yes, I thought as much. In your defence, they are fiercely private and notoriously reclusive, even amongst the magical community.

"The kingdom is called Faoin Talamh, which literally means underground in Irish. Irish is the Sidhe mother tongue, but they all speak English fluently, so at least we won't need translators along. 

"Basically, it's hard to identify exactly how much we have in common, but magicologists believe that wizards and the fair folk are all descended from the same magical antecedents. We diverged at some point, and wizarding folk stayed out in the world, while the fairies took their magic under the ground. But you'll notice a lot of similarities in our methods of casting, though the Sidhe tend to work wandlessly. They also work with their surroundings—their command of natural magic is staggering—and you'll see a lot of instinctive casting that seems to resonate with the surroundings. Often, when the Sidhe perform spells or incantations, you'll feel it in the soles of your feet, or notice waves forming in water, or a wind whipping up. It's _glorious_. It's also part of the reason I want you on as an envoy. Of all the wizards I know, you're the most instinctive caster. You are so tapped into your power. I think they'll appreciate you.

"Anyway, as you can imagine, they would have been hugely advantageous allies in both of the wizarding wars. Riddle, for all his power, had about as much instinct as doorbell. The Sidhe would have taken him down without batting an eyelid."

Harry has now been part of the magical world for far longer than not, but there are still so many ways in which magic can still evoke that breath-stealing sense of sheer wonder in him. As Malfoy speaks, Harry feels the familiar dip and swoop deep in his chest, that low clamour of excitement that plucks at his very core. He turns to lean against his own armrest, now facing Malfoy, their socked feet barely grazing as they stare at each other with the same light of adventure in their eyes.

"Tell me more," Harry says. 

"Well, the Ministry has been working for years to try to foster a political relationship with the Sidhe. They would be strong allies, but they've always resisted getting involved with the rest of the magical community. However, we believe they keep tabs on the world aboveground—changelings, and so on. They essentially plant fairy spies in our world. It's nearly impossible to find them, though; they're so proficient at modulating their magic and passing as wizards.

"But then, quite out of the blue, I got involved with them.

"As you may remember, when I took up this position I had previously been involved in the big diplomacy drive with the Merfolk. I'd spent years building a relationship with the British Mer—that was before you and I were a thing, of course." He gestures vaguely between them, and then glares at Harry, as if daring him to laugh at Malfoy's neat and wholly inaccurate classification of the past few years of their challenging, complicated, brilliant, undefined relationship as a _thing_. 

"Anyway, I'd spent all that time building up a cordial relationship with the Mer, and then we worked together to push through the Cleaner Lakes and Rivers in Ten Years programme, to ensure magical assistance in maintaining the integrity of their domains. It was quite the coup. Anyway, after that, I got a promotion, started managing my own little corner of the Creatures department, and working away to try to do away with that outdated thinking around Beings of different magical inclinations. 

"One day, I was contacted by an emissary from the Sidhe. A fairy, brought up in a wizarding home and raised in our world. She told me that the Sidhe were interested in treating with me, that they had seen evidence of my strong advocacy of non-wizarding magical Beings, that they believed I could be the one to broker a fair, equitable trade agreement between our world and theirs."

Despite his serious demeanour, Malfoy takes a moment to preen a bit. Harry rolls his eyes fondly, and gestures rudely around a forkful of curry to make him continue the story. 

"I struck up a diplomatic relationship with them—very hush-hush of course, need-to-know basis and all that. We didn't want to scare them off. I even visited Faoin Talamh—a few times, actually—over the years. I've never known anything like it, really. They have a whole civilisation, it's incredible. You can lose yourself, down there, and you don't even really care. I can see how visitors lose track of time.

"I had a particularly cordial relationship with one of the Queen's sons, Prince Fíachu, who had been appointed the official envoy to our world. We became more than colleagues—we were the best of friends. Through him, I learned all the very best about Sidhe traditions and culture. It was...enlightening."

Harry has a moment to wonder why Malfoy is looking a bit flushed and tense, before Malfoy continues.

"However, a few years ago, things became somewhat complicated. I began to suspect that Fíachu's feelings for me had begun to move beyond the platonic. You must understand, Potter, that the Sidhe take love very seriously. They believe that love is the purest expression of the soul, and that it should be protected and cherished above all else. As a young man, I was not uninterested in Fíachu; he is fascinating, kind, clever...handsome." Malfoy flushes slightly, and Harry can't quite squash his scowl.

"As time passed, however, it became clear to me that I could never reciprocate in the way he would expect. I hoped that we could ignore the issue, but on one visit he made an official proposal—he requested a soul bond, the Sidhe equivalent of our marriage. I had to say no."

Harry is wrestling with the small, meanest part of himself, the part that wants to roar in envy, to possess. He looks away, and Malfoy continues.

"He accepted it graciously, and we continued our friendship and our diplomatic relationship. However, after a while he made it clear that the Sidhe would never truly be interested in allying themselves with the wizarding world. I have been continuing to work on it, but the response has not been encouraging. Until now."

"But...it's a good thing that they're coming round again, surely?" Harry is confused, and then irritated by Malfoy's vigorous eye-rolling.

"Think about it, Potter. The Queen won't even meet with me one minute, and then we're being invited to attend the court of the Sidhe over Bealtaine, and to sit down with her negotiating team? I have one question: _why now_? What is her ulterior motive? Because you can be sure she has one."

"Maybe—and bear with me here, Malfoy—maybe she just wants to actually negotiate? Crazy idea, I know."

Malfoy is starting to get pissed off now. The eye-rolling intensifies, and his lip has that curl of scorn that Harry particularly dislikes.

"Jesus, Malfoy, no need to be a pain in the arse about it. Are you trying to tell me that the Queen of the Sidhe stopped negotiating with you because you dumped her son, but now she's concocted some evil scheme which consists of... what? Inviting you to a big party in her luxurious fairy palace? Seems a bit thin to me. But I suppose you're the expert. You love this stuff, you figure it out."

They so rarely argue properly anymore, that Harry had forgotten how lethal Malfoy can be when he's coming from a place of proper rage. 

"Potter, you absolute fucker. I'm trying to explain something to you, and maybe even get your insight, as someone who I _trust and respect_, and this is how you help? I am telling you, as the foremost expert on Magical Beings and a long-standing ambassador to the Sidhe, that Something. Is. Up. And I want you to help me figure it out."

He's getting into his stride now, hair slipping into one eye, voice impossibly snide.

"And yes Potter, actually I do love this stuff. Which is why I want to fix things with the Sidhe, to get back to the negotiating table and really benefit both of us with a strong trade agreement. But do you really think I do this job for the love of it? When I started in the Creature division, do you think I skipped merrily into the office every day with joy in my heart?

"That's rhetorical, you idiot. The answer is no. I hated this bloody job at first. Me with all my outstanding NEWTs, and a Malfoy to boot, and the only Ministry job I could land was a dud assistant role crawling and sucking up to things I considered beastly? I fucking hated every second of it. You think I enjoyed having werewolves snapping their jaws at me and laughing when I flinched, knowing I couldn't think of anything but my old friend Greyback and his visits to the Manor? Do you think I felt at ease negotiating with vampires—with _my_ skin?" 

He brandishes his wrist at Harry, and it's true; his skin is paper-thin and almost translucent, and Harry can see the greenish-blue rills of his veins running below the surface. 

"No, Potter, you arrogant twat. As it happens, I did come to love it—because that tends to happen naturally when you're doing something you care about, that you're good at. But I had to learn how to love it. And how do you think I did that? I worked at it, Potter. I educated myself. I learned what a bigot I was, and I changed. I fucking changed, Potter. It may have taken me ages to unlearn everything I thought I knew, but I did it. So no, I'm not doing this because I love it, or because it benefits me. I'm doing it because I think it's the right thing to do. So thanks for your support with that."

They're both quiet then, Malfoy probably still simmering, and Harry thinking. He hasn't ever really considered that Malfoy didn't join the Creatures division by choice, that he might have hoped for a different path. He hadn't thought a huge amount about Malfoy at all, back then. He was floundering himself, and Malfoy was an indistinct blur in the distance most of the time. By the time Malfoy became Harry's star to sail by, Malfoy was already established in the Ministry; in all their years of friendship and desire and longing, Malfoy has never been anything other than completely passionate about his work. It shakes Harry to imagine him differently, and reminds him sharply of all that he knows Malfoy has left behind.

It's a profound statement about Malfoy's character, that he's managed to work through a childhood based on indoctrination and prejudice, and become a bastion of tolerance and liberal thinking. Harry knew it was true, he just has never thought about what it took for Malfoy to get there. 

He knows he has to apologise, and he flicks his wand to get rid of their dinner plates and leftovers before he reaches out a hand tentatively, and touches Malfoy's shoulder. 

"I'm sorry, Malfoy. That was stupid of me. I didn't think."

"You didn't. Do you ever?" Malfoy's voice is gruff, but he relaxes into Harry's touch a fraction. 

"I do, sometimes. But I'm just being pig-headed for the sake of it right now. I'm tired, and I'm worried about this mission. You're right, something's off about it."

Malfoy brightens a bit, and turns to face Harry along the couch. "Good, Potter. I just need someone I can trust, keeping an eye out with me. It won't hurt that you're an annoyingly strong and subtle caster either, if we need to do a bit of snooping while we're there."

Then Malfoy is moving closer, sliding across the couch cushions until he has his hands wrapped around Harry's ankles. Harry's mouth goes a bit dry—Malfoy touching him with that speculative look on his face tends to have that effect.

"Okay, Potter—time to go over the most salient details relating to our trip. Let's see how well you've been listening. But since we've agreed to keep things professional while we're on the trip, I think we should make the most of each other while we still can. Wouldn't you agree?"

Harry nods enthusiastically, and in a second, Malfoy has hooked his arms under Harry's bent knees and yanked him flat on the couch. Malfoy is lying over him, his body a distracting, delicious weight on Harry's. 

"Right, Potter, talk to me. If you can show me that you've been paying attention to me, then you'll get a reward. Is that clear?"

His voice is crisp, but the look on his face is almost wild, eyes half-lidded, mouth glistening where he's licked his lips. Harry tries a roll of his hips, gasps at the friction, and then has to suppress a groan as Malfoy pins him down with a hand on each hipbone, thumbs moving in a slow drag over the taut skin just above Harry's waistband.

"First question. What sort of spells are safe to cast in Faoin Talamh?"

As he speaks, he's steadily unbuttoning Harry's jeans, tugging them down and then off. Harry has to swallow hard before he can think of the answer.

"Most spells are safe to cast—though we should steer clear of any offensive spells at all costs, as it will be taken as—ah!—hostile." 

Malfoy's mouth is moving along the line of Harry's hip into the crease of his thigh, and Harry can't control the shudder that passes through him. 

"Go on." Malfoy's voice is a low growl, and he pauses in his path to speak. 

"We…we should try to stick to smaller spells: _Lumos, Accio, Wingardium Levi_— oh fuck, Malfoy, your mouth…"

"Because?"

"Okay, okay, don't stop, please. Because the Sidhe have such strong elemental magic, they form a…a…symbiosis? with their environment, and any magic that we produce can be absorbed into the atmosphere more quickly, leading to…ah…headaches, tiredness, a stronger than normal depletion of our magical cores. Oh, you bastard. I need…" and he trails off into a gasp.

"You have been working hard," Malfoy purrs approvingly. "Good boy." And Harry does groan then, loud and broken-sounding. And then Malfoy's tongue is licking a hot, greedy trail down Harry's cock, and then further back, unceasing and relentless and demanding, and they both forget about doing any talking at all for quite some time.

* * *

Harry and Malfoy are standing on a bridge in Cork city, a bridge so old that the very stones have been softened and gentled by age and the ceaseless lap of the River Lee. Below them, at the place where night and black water meet, are the bricked-up remains of an old dungeon gate. Harry's not superstitious, but he feels a tendril of dread tug at his gut, the barest flicker of unease reminding him that the mission still lies ahead.

Ahead of and above them is a cathedral, spire seeking the sky and bricks gleaming bone-white against the night. Malfoy has just dropped a Sickle over the side of the bridge, and is leaning over the wall, elbows pinned to the limestone, and the wings of his shoulder blades taut with effort as he peers into the water. The night has a spongy, indistinct quality borne of too much recent rain and the low press of cloud. Around them, the lights of passing cars wink and glimmer and fade. Malfoy is serene and beautiful in this light, with shifting shadows at play on his face. Harry can't stop watching him, eyes dropping unbidden from the curl of Malfoy's mouth, to the stretch of his shoulders, to the thoughtless elegance of the press of his thighs against the stonework. He wishes suddenly, fiercely, that there was no mission. That this was just them. That he could just _be_ somewhere with Malfoy for no reason other than to see him and touch him under the lights of some other city. He pushes his hands further into his pockets, and tries to tear his eyes away.

Malfoy is moving now, hands rising in what could be a greeting or an imprecation. Harry can see the water below them roiling black and rising, impossibly, creeping and thrusting higher. Harry throws up a Notice-Me-Not so strong that the old walls creak and grumble at the intrusion. It may be late but the bridge is bounded by high old houses, and the windows might not be as sightless as they seem. 

Water, white-tipped and frothing, rushes upwards, until out of foam a shapes emerges, balanced on the crest of the water. It seems to be—it is—a horse, the dull gleam of its coat somehow darker again than the water and the night. But it's bigger than it should be, muscular flanks shivering and tensing, hooves dancing over the current in a delicate piaffe, mane and tail snapping and fluttering in the wind. It's breathtaking. 

Malfoy sighs, a soft delighted noise of awe, and he's grinning as he mutters, "That part never gets old."

Then he's leaning over further, body straining out as far as he can reach, and he's laughing as he shouts a greeting. "Pooka, old friend! It's been too long!" And the horse-creature is rearing, and the water is crashing and thrusting against the spandrel wall, and all of a sudden the creature is nudging its great head into the welcoming press of Malfoy's outstretched arm. It whickers gently, and in the blissful roll of its dense black eyes Harry can see a pulse of red flame. It's both more and less like any horse Harry has ever come across, and he supposes he shouldn't be surprised when it presses the velvet flesh of its muzzle against Harry's cheek and says, "Welcome to Cork, _a cara mo chara_."

* * *

Pooka and Malfoy are old friends, it seems, and Harry watches delightedly as they catch up, talking over each other in excitement. 

Malfoy can't stop stroking Pooka's glossy withers, hand moving hypnotically under the ribbons of its mane. He sounds amused when he murmurs, "You make a beautiful horse, you mad beast. Did you get tired of being a mutt, then?" Pooka snorts, and the shake of his muzzle ripples down his crest through his shoulders. 

"I was the handsomest dog you ever saw, little dragon. That first time we met, when you were trailing around with your little notebook and feathery pen, you couldn't take your eyes off me."

Malfoy's laugh is bright and unguarded, even as he's nodding in agreement. "I couldn't, you were the most magnificent creature I'd ever seen." And then, to Harry, "It was my first event after I started as an assistant in the then-Creatures division. We were attending the Magical Beings Concord ratification on behalf of the United Kingdom. Pooka was along with the Irish division. I actually thought we would go blind from all the poteen we drank that first night. It made for an interesting conference the next day—trying not to be sick into the sleeve of my robes. Clúrachán-brewed booze—totally resistant to Hangover Potion of course." He shudders, then grows serious.

"Pooka, I'm sorry to cut this short, but we're here on business." He gestures to Harry, shrugging his shoulders. "This one here hasn't a clue what he's doing, and we're setting off first thing in the morning. Tell me, pal, have you heard anything about wizards being invited to Faoin Talamh for the Fire Feast?"

At the mention of the Sidhe kingdom, Pooka's ears flatten against his skull, and he bares his teeth in a grimace. His face darkens. "I won't go next or near to that place. Yer Wan's queensguard took me down there one day and Dagda tried to put a bridle on me and ride me up and down the court for sport."

Malfoy actually gasps at this, and Pooka's laugh is wry and bitter. "Well, he didn't try it for very long after I took a chunk out of him, and she knew as well as I did that I was well within my rights to do so, and she sent me off home with honeyed words and her queenly blessing. But Dagda is her eldest boy and her heart's love and all the honey in the world from her can only make things sticky for me.

"So I've heard nothing, little dragon, but you know no good will come from taking your wizarding light under the ground. And do you presume to negotiate with Yer Wan down there?"

Harry's interested now, and opens his mouth to ask Pooka more, but at the minute shake of Malfoy's head he relaxes back down against the bridge and stays silent.

"We're spending Bealtaine in the Sidhe court at the invitation of Her Majesty, yes. It's a legitimate diplomatic mission involving prominent dignitaries from our government. She can't be up to anything political or she'll bring the combined weight of all the Beings in the Concord down on her, diplomacy be damned. She's not going to risk all-out war with any trickery. I just wonder, why now? Is there something else she's after?"

"Always after something, that one. You can't trust her as far as you could throw her, and you couldn't throw her far, even with all the fizzbangs you can conjure with that little wooden stick of yours. But…" and his expression turned sly and teasing all of a sudden, "don't you have a source closer to the underground throne than me? What about that gentle dark-eyed boy of hers that you were so fond of?"

And then Harry's frowning and Malfoy's blushing, that delicate, creeping flush reminding Harry that there's at least some truth to what Pooka's saying. Harry pushes against the ugly, mean little tug of bitterness that tightens in his chest.

"Fíachu is Her Majesty's appointed delegate and liaison with the wizarding world. We have a harmonious working relationship insofar as is possible considering that the Sidhe rarely venture above ground. We'll be seeing him tomorrow, of course, but as one of the princes, and third in line to the throne of the Tuatha Dé Danann, I hardly think that Fíachu is likely to step over the diplomatic line we're all toeing." Malfoy's properly frowning now, and Harry tucks his selfish jealousy away to worry over later, because he can tell from the concern on Malfoy's face that they need to concentrate on their mission.

Pooka gives another of his expressive snorts and nudges Malfoy with his whiskery nose. "Of course, little dragon, just remember that when he's staring at you across that throne room with a raging hunger in his eyes, and half the court mad with jealousy for having lost the prince's heart, and the other half sighing in delight at the way he's giving himself over to you. The Sidhe don't love lightly; he won't have forgotten you."

And Harry steps away from the wall and clears his throat then, because maybe this is Malfoy's show and he's just supposed to be a supporting character but really he's put up with just about as much of this sort of talk as he's willing to. But Malfoy is ahead of him, both hands scratching Pooka behind the ears as he murmurs quiet goodbyes. 

And then Pooka is trotting over to Harry for a farewell nudge, and the amusement in his eyes is fast fading into a sort of abashed astonishment as he really looks at Harry's face. His muzzle is once more raising a shiver along Harry's cheek as Pooka leans into him and whispers, "I'm sorry, little wild one. I didn't see it until now. You are a deep well. But don't fret, my friend. I've seen his heart and you have nothing to fear. But remain wary while you are below ground. They have ways of rippling the fabric of the world, making you see wrinkles that aren't there. Hold onto your trust!" Then he rises up above the parapet of the bridge before crashing down into silence, leaving nothing behind him but the wash and swirl of foam on the skin of the river.

* * *

They follow the river for what seems like a long time, going further out of the city in the heavy silence that comes with that deepest, slowest part of the night. They don't talk at all, but as they walk along the quays, Harry very carefully and deliberately takes Malfoy's hand, and the cool slide of their palms acts as his anchor and his reassurance. They pass under a railway bridge and then go by what used to be a pub, perched precariously on the slip down to the river, its windows matte with old dirt. Malfoy steers them across the road then, to a teetering flight of steps that leads them up and then up some more along a rutted laneway carved into the cliff face. They go higher and higher, as bats swing through the golden pools of light cast by old wrought-iron streetlamps. 

Breathless and warm, they're finally on the brow of the cliff that overlooks the river below. From this height, in the dense almost-light of the hour just before dawn, the surface of the Lee shivers and writhes like a living thing. 

"Can you feel it?" Malfoy's voice is hushed, and when Harry stops and just _feels_ for a minute, he notices the insidious creep of magic in his very bones. It's an old magic, cold and stern and somehow remote. Harry's own magic is like a living creature, bristling with heat and energy, and it comes from within. It's a part of him.

This magic, though. It feels like it's running through the very earth itself, like it's been summoned from solid rock and damp soil, like it carries a memory of ages past.

"That's fairy magic," Malfoy whispers. "This place is called Beale's Hill. Muggles have some story or other for who it's named after, but we believe that Beale was a wizard who was taken to Faoin Talamh as a child, but who came back aboveground as an adult. Of course, time can move differently there, so when he came back it was to a different world, all his family dead, and everything he remembered utterly changed. The story has it that he bought this land on the site of an ancient Sidhe fort and lived here for the rest of his life, hoping the Sidhe would come back for him."

He shakes himself, and laughs a little even as Harry feels the pinpricks of goose pimples rising on his arms.

"Right, Potter, our hotel is this way, but I suggest we Apparate. We have about four hours before we have to join the delegation and we should use the time wisely." He holds his arm out enquiringly, and with a smile and a turn he has them spinning through space to land gently in the bedroom of Malfoy's suite. 

Harry steps back and pats his pockets in search of his own room key, stifling a yawn. Malfoy is stepping away, and with his customary elegant precision, he sends his outer robes swooping to their hook on the back of the door, and his shirt is trying to fold itself almost before it slips from his arms at a touch of his wand to the row of buttons. 

Then he's standing in front of Harry wearing only a white vest of cotton so fine that Harry can't seem to stop staring at the shadows and lines of Malfoy's body through it. Malfoy chucks his wand onto the bedside table, and very deliberately starts undoing the button of his trousers. 

"Are you just going to watch, Potter?" he asks drily, and Harry has to wet his lips before he speaks.

"I thought we agreed to keep this strictly professional, Ambassador," he replies, though he can see Malfoy's amused eyebrow raise as Harry's hands twitch towards Malfoy involuntarily.

And because he has never had any willpower when it comes to Malfoy, he continues, "You, in that vest, are looking the very opposite of professional. Although I suppose we're not quite on the clock just yet…"

And even as he says it, he's moving and reaching out and then finally—blissfully—touching. Malfoy is solid and strong beneath his hands, and he's reassuringly brimful of the spit and crackle of his vibrant, living magic. And then Malfoy's mouth is moving warm against his, and when Malfoy pulls him back onto the bed, Harry feels a rush of desire so intense that he can't stop the groan from leaving him in a hot, helpless exhalation. Afterwards, with sweat and come drying sticky on his skin and Malfoy's heartbeat thrumming beneath his cheek, Harry feels that, on reflection, the time was very wisely used indeed.

* * *

By the time the wizarding delegation meets to begin the journey, Harry has snatched a couple of hours of sleep and a large number of cups of coffee. He's pleasantly achey and has a darkening line of bruises running from below his ear to his left nipple, and he's left them unhealed, though they're hidden under the starched collar of his Robes of Merlin.

Malfoy is magnificent in his plum and gold robes of office—dazzling, remote, and untouchable. Harry's fingers actually itch to touch him—to slide his hot hand into the silky fall of hair at the nape of Malfoy's neck; to lick a disruptive trail along the ridge of Malfoy's jaw; to feel the quickening rush of Malfoy's breath as he mouths from Malfoy's hip socket to his inner thigh. All these parts of Malfoy were so accessible to Harry only a matter of hours ago, and now Malfoy's locked the heat and pulse of himself away, trussed himself up in a pristine costume, put on his public face. He's no more Harry's than anyone else's, for now, and Harry hates it.

Harry feels obtrusive, extraneous, but he has to admit (grudgingly) that at least he makes an impressive sight. The mantle of the ceremonial robes of the Order of Merlin is made of a dense, ultramarine velvet lined with white taffeta. It's not uncomfortable, as such, but it's heavy and cumbersome. The black hood and surcoat are merely decorative, and Harry still feels slightly embarrassed at the fact that the Order's tailor embroidered the Hallows symbol onto the shoulder, alongside the insignia of the Order of Merlin. Still, if Malfoy wants the Saviour of the Wizarding World, then the Saviour he shall have. Harry sets his mouth, knowing that his face is stern and impassive, and he brushes his hair back from his forehead. Let them see Voldemort's mark on him, and know who they are dealing with.

Malfoy and his team are at the head of the delegation, along with the Deputy Minister of the UK Ministry, the Minister of Magic herself from the Irish Ministry, and various members of both countries' Wizengamots. Everyone is in official regalia, chains of office and ceremonial medals winking in the sunshine. There's a hush in the air, a heady in-breath of anticipation and expectation. Harry swallows against the lump in his throat, and reaches again for that bowstring of adventure deep in his gut and lets the nerves twang until they feel more like excitement. 

They've all been Portkeyed in from the wizarding hotel to the location on the other side of the city as specified by the Sidhe. A team from the Irish Ministry have had Muggle Repelling charms up for two days now. Ronayne's Court is a high, grassy sward with curious, overgrown stone formations standing imposingly at intervals. 

Harry can feel that same cloying, insidious creep of fairy magic, but it's thrumming now, moving through the ground below them and vibrating through the very air. The old magic is on the move, Harry thinks, and he shivers. 

And then he realises that it's not just magic that's sending tremors up through their feet, juddering and jolting up their spines and setting their teeth to rattling. The ground itself is splitting, gaping like the skin of a windfall plum, the two sides of the fissure widening with a wrench until before them lies a road into the hill. 

The way is smooth and surprisingly mundane: wide, creamy blocks of sandstone fitting together like a hand in a glove. It stretches on to where it's swallowed by the dark mouth of the crack in the grass. No one moves. Harry knows without having to meet anyone's eyes that they're all feeling as reluctant as he is to enter the ruined maw of the hill.

Then, there comes a noise so familiar and humdrum that it has them all shaking themselves and smiling ruefully at each other, feeling slightly foolish at their discomfiture. It's the sound of a gathering, of friendly voices moving nearer. The steady drumbeat of horses' hooves is a measured counterpoint to the merry chatter of the approaching party. 

And suddenly, just like that, the Sidhe welcome delegation is there. There are around twenty of them, some on horseback and some on foot. The road is wide enough for them to stand five or six abreast, and Harry can see that they are all beautifully arrayed. They are all wearing what looks like silk, their robes the colours of gemstones and so finely wrought as to seem as insubstantial as cuckoo spit or dandelion clocks or Queen Anne's lace. They look as though they might fly away on the breeze, like nothing is tethering them to the earth except their own capricious whims. They are all beautiful, although Harry feels that he can catch a sense of something ancient and a little sharp and sly in their smiles when he looks out of the corner of his eye. They are uncanny.

They stop at the edge of the underground road, keeping back to the shadow cast by the hill. Their horses, though the right overall shape, are not really horses at all, Harry can see now, though they have the same nervous shake of the head and quick sidestep of some of the more highly-bred racehorses. Where they should have a furry coat, they have wrinkled, plump, obscenely pink skin. Where they should have manes, Harry can see that they instead sport some sort of gluey, cobwebby substance. When one particularly fractious specimen teeters in a quick semi-circle before being wrested into submission by his amethyst-clad, wild-eyed rider, Harry can see that the creature has a muscular, ridged, fleshy tail, like that of a rodent. It whips and lashes as the creature struggles against the bit in its mouth. The rider leans down to whisper into the creature's ear, but his words are clearly meant to madden the beast further, and he laughs, sloe-eyed and dangerous-looking, when the creature trembles and paws the ground.

Then there's a sudden hush, and one of the Sidhe steps forward. He is glorious, resplendent in silks of purple and teal and a grey the exact colour of mist lifting off a river just as dawn breaks. His arms are bare and his hair is long and he wears gold rings on every finger and in his nose and his ears. He raises one hand and holds it out into the sunshine, the whipcord muscles of his upper arm trembling and rippling with effort. And Malfoy is stepping forward and gripping the outstretched arm, and they're both looking at each other and smiling what look like warm, proper smiles, and Harry thinks that surely there's no need for a welcome touch to last so long.

Then Malfoy drops to one knee and inclines his head, with a murmur of, "Your Royal Highness," but the Sidhe is tugging him to his feet and holding him by his shoulders and laughing, "Really, Draco? After all this time? Will you be such a stranger to your old friend?"

And Harry realises that this must be Fíachu.

* * *

It's all very well to know that Malfoy's feelings for Fíachu are merely friendly, Harry reflects glumly, but it's quite another to have to see just how clearly Fíachu's feelings for Malfoy are _not_ just friendly. Fíachu and Malfoy have been chatting and walking together since the delegation entered the fairy hill. There was an initial period of hush when the fissure in the ground sealed itself with a groan, and they were all left staring at each other in the sickly blue light of the orbs that bobbed above and ahead of them to mark their way.

Once the visitors get used to the heavy, cool weight of being underground, the chatting starts. Harry himself falls into a group with two of the Irish delegates and a golden-eyed Sidhe woman who informs them that she is the Ard Brithem of her people—the chief justice, responsible for assessing wrongs and meting out punishment or absolution. Her tales make for fascinating listening, and in the stories she tells them, Harry can piece together information about the social structures and civil responsibilities of the Sidhe. 

They seem a remarkably peaceable society, with fluid concepts of ownership and a relaxed approach to sexual mores. The few judicial problems seem to arise through marital conflicts. Though the Sidhe are happily polyamorous as a society, some members do enter into bonded unions (mostly couples or threesomes, but the Ard Brithem had once presided over the bonding of five people, who were still happily bonded to this day). Bonded unions are taken very seriously amongst the Sidhe, and Harry understands that they took the spirit of "til death us do part" as an instruction rather than an option. The Queen herself has two bonded partners, and between them all they have seven children. Infidelity outside of a bond is seen as a grave offence, and the Ard Brithem speaks soberly of the few times she had pronounced a sentence of death or exile (both equally bad in Sidhe eyes) upon someone who repeatedly and cruelly broke their bond oath.

Fascinating as it is, Harry can't help but sneak glances at Malfoy, striding at the head of the delegation with Prince Fíachu. Their two heads, one a dark froth of curls and the other a gleaming fall of satiny gold, are bent towards each other confidingly. They haven't stopped talking since they met, and even as Harry watches, Malfoy throws his head back and laughs at something Fíachu says, a sweet, unguarded sound even in the echoing half-light of the underground road. Fíachu is watching with what Harry can only describe as pure fondness, dark eyes glittering with delight and tenderness as he watches the inelegant scrunch of Malfoy's nose and the expressive curve of his lips. Harry feels a reluctant sort of kinship with Fíachu, then—he knows that expression so well, because he has felt it spreading treacherous and telling across his own face countless times before. He sighs, then gives himself a little mental shake and turns his attention back to his companions, determinedly ignoring the amused, questioning look in the sharp eyes of the Ard Brithem.

* * *

He isn't sure how long they walk for, in the end. The way seems endless, but it may just be the unremitting press of the arch of hollowed out earth around them, and the unearthly glow of the fairy light making time seem fuzzy and stretched out.

Then the blueish subterranean light seems to be warming, and the tunnel through which they're walking starts to expand until it opened out, suddenly and spectacularly, into a cavern so vast and beautiful that Harry has no choice but to blink, and then gape foolishly around him.

It's dazzling there, literally—the near sides of the cavern glimmering and winking with mineral deposits, and stretching up and out so far that Harry can't see where they end. The place is teeming with Sidhe folk, a swarm of colour and bare skin and blade’s-edge smiles. The air is warm, uncannily so, and richly scented with geranium and honeysuckle and something peppery and sharp—so much so that the cloying underground smell is almost a scent memory. In the middle of everything, surrounded by a bower of stalagmites that seems to have been cultivated and shaped into tree-like formations, sits a rock-hewn throne. And on the throne is the Queen herself, waiting for them.

* * *

The introductions take an age. For what seems like an egalitarian, free society, the Sidhe are remarkably formal when it comes to diplomatic protocol. Every guest is personally introduced to the Queen, in order of rank. It means that Harry is fairly far down the list, considering that he doesn't have an official political role in the delegation. His audience is blessedly brief, kneeling at the foot of the throne with his mantle held over his right arm and his head bowed. The Queen is an imposing figure, made even taller by her tiara, which is a gleaming yellow-white like polished teeth, but which Malfoy assures him later was actually formed from a rare milky feldspar much prized by the Sidhe. (Malfoy, the insufferable suck-up, has of course brought some specimens along with him as a gift, hand-carved and polished and set into platinum and gold.) 

The Queen seems vague and disinterested when faced with Harry, her voice a cool, low thing as she instructs him to rise. However, he feels a prickle of that crypt-cold fairy magic on his skin, so subtle that he may not have noticed it except for his rigorous training and magical sensitivity, and he fancies that he catches a sideways, slanted glance at his scar from those impassive silvery eyes as he rises to step away. This is a monarch who holds her feelings close, Harry thinks.

An interminable feast follows, partaken of on rows and rows of long wooden trestles and benches that are whisked into place by the fairy hordes. Course after course after course appears—unidentifiable meats simmered in pungent liquids, elaborately presented roasted swans and flamingos and parrots, platter after platter of crispy insects sauteed in butter and wild garlic. Harry samples everything on offer, mindful of offering insult to his hosts but also, suddenly and surprisingly, ravenous with hunger. He's glad of the fact that fairy food is safe for wizardingkind to eat, knowing as he does from Malfoy's brisk and thorough instructions that no Muggle could partake of Sidhe food and return to their own realm; if they did, they would pine for the taste and waste away, dreaming of one more morsel of the food of the Sidhe. Harry does ensure that he sticks firmly to water, however. It was the one point on which Malfoy had been most firm—no fairy-brewed liquor can be consumed, as it has the power to beguile and imprison even the strongest wizard—_yes, Potter, even you_. 

Harry is surprised to find himself seated next to Fíachu, while Malfoy is firmly ensconced at the top table next to the Queen. Fíachu is a genial host—warm, unaffected, full of humour and interest. He keeps up a constant stream of mildly barbed stories about the Sidhe elders at the table that has Harry snorting inelegantly into his water goblet, and his grasp of modern wizarding culture and the wider political landscape of Magical Beings around the globe is sound and progressive. Harry, almost against his will (and despite Fíachu's irritatingly attractive brown eyes and mobile, expressive face), likes him immensely. 

He knows he's in trouble, however, when during one of the pudding courses Fíachu places his elbows on the table and leans in confidingly to him. 

"Harry, may I speak frankly? Of friendship, and not politics?"

He must have seen the panic in Harry's face, for he laughs another of his rich, low laughs and says, "Draco did not coach you in how to speak to me of matters outside of the political, then? No matter, Harry. We speak as friends only, not as political allies."

He's so close, so sincere and open-hearted and friendly, Harry finds himself leaning into the conversation confidingly. "Happily, Sir," he replies. 

Fíachu stares down at his plate, absent-mindedly running his finger through the ruins of a milk pudding. 

"You may have heard, Harry, that I have long harboured an affection for your Draco? No, no, don't worry,"—he places a reassuring hand on Harry's arm—"matters of the heart are not secret or shameful among the Sidhe. We are glad to offer up our hearts for all to understand. We believe that love should not remain silent."

He falls quiet, then, though stirs himself at a movement from Harry. 

"There was a time, years ago, when we were both young men who knew little of the world, that I believed he returned my affections. It was not easy then, to move between Faoin Talamh and your side, but we visited each other when we could, and we corresponded regularly, and our friendship became a sustaining and deep-rooted thing. No words of love passed between us, for we were only starting out in our lives and we needed to find our paths. But I believed, always, that it was a matter of time."

Harry swallows heavily, knowing what was coming but powerless to speak up for fear of betraying Malfoy's confidence. Fíachu continues.

"As the time went past, however, I felt Draco move away from me, along a different path. I heard so much of his work, his progression through your Ministry. I heard of you, of course, and of Ron and Pansy and Greg and Ginny and all your friends. I had hoped we would meet one day. But I grew to understand that, though Draco still loved me fiercely, it was as a brother and not a man. It plagued me. The bitterness grew in my heart like a blight. We had no formal understanding, but all of Faoin Talamh could see the direction my heart took whenever he was near. I knew I had to tell him, to make my intentions clear.

"I did not receive the answer I had been hoping for. He did not pity me or try to save my feelings, and he told me with the full and generous love of a brother that though he treasured me, his heart lay elsewhere. We both cried rivers of tears that day, but when we had finished talking we knew that we had scrubbed our way clear of bitterness and that we could continue as the best of friends."

Fíachu's face is clouded with the memory of pain, his desire and hope still branded in every line of his face.

"Harry, this was three years ago. I understood then what he was telling me, but I have lived with this loss since then only to see him continue as he always has, with no sign of a marriage or a heart's love in his life. He remains closed to me, but has never opened himself to another. I know you are his true friend—tell me, do you know where his heart lies? Is he closer to attaining the one he wants, or could his feelings have changed again with time?"

And Harry has to shut his eyes then, against the flare of naked hope and want that blazes from Fíachu's face. He can't think, can't speak. He knew that Malfoy had turned down a proposal from Fíachu, but he hadn't known that Malfoy had done it for love of another. Three years ago—at least a year into this…thing (yes ok, _thing_ seems to describe it well) that he and Harry had started. A year into their wordless understanding; a year into realising that when they were near, they only wanted each other; a year into realising that when they were apart, they were happier to wait until they were near each other again. 

And yet, in all those years since, they hadn't spoken a word to cement the feelings, to build up the bricks and mortar of all their too-brief nights together, and all the times they laughed until their stomachs hurt, and all the times they contented themselves with the barest brush of their fingers as they stood shoulder to shoulder in the Ministry lift. It's incongruous, really, to be miles underground in a magical fairy realm, talking to the man who wants to marry Malfoy, for fuck's sake—that it would take this (let's face it) unlikely sequence of events for Harry to realise that he and Malfoy seem to have been properly _in love_ with each other for quite a long time. 

Harry opens his eyes, and realises with a quiet sort of horror that everything must have been playing across his face, for Fíachu is staring at him and his eyes are burning and liquid as he mouthed a shocked, soundless _oh_ of comprehension.

"I should have known it would be you, Harry Potter," he mutters eventually. "Though you would keep him dangling on a thread for you for all these years, and never make him yours in the eyes of the world? He deserves a braver love than that, oh _Saviour_."

Harry splutters a bit at this, because actually it's always been Malfoy who wanted to keep things quiet between them, Malfoy who feared the bad publicity and the impact on his career advancement and the wrath of Narcissa. But Harry knows _he's_ never pushed for more, either. He wonders, now, whether he should have taken more time to strip his feelings down and really see them—whether Malfoy would have matched him risk for risk, if he'd only taken one. 

He decides to be brave now, finally, in this most unsuitable place and with this most unsuitable man. He looks at Fíachu, really looks, and he begins to tell him everything. He tells Fíachu about the way they were together in school, the way things changed after school, the way Malfoy had begun to feel like an inevitability, a necessity. He tells Fíachu a little about his parents, Sirius, the Dursleys, the Weasleys—just to explain how Harry has had a difficult road to learning about the right way to love. That love came to him late, that he still has to work to understand it. And then he says to Fíachu what he has never said, or even allowed himself think, before. 

"I love him. I didn't understand that I was doing it wrong, but I _do_ love him. And if he told you that he loves someone, then I think that it might be me he meant. Which means he loves me back. And if he does, then I'll do things right. If he'll have me."

It's faltering and messy and embarrassing, but Fíachu's face softens the tiniest bit and he nods. They look down at their own hands, careful of the fragile silence. The rest of the dinner seems to last much too long.

* * *

By the time the festivities have come to an end, and the exhausted delegates have been shown to their rooms, Harry is vibrating with tension. He hasn't had a chance to speak to Malfoy properly, though he did manage to see where Malfoy is being put up; Harry's room is further along the corridor, past a decorative alcove carved into the wall of the passage and filled with a floral arrangement that on closer inspection appears to be constructed of delicate wire and more of that gossamer silk. Nothing is what it seems, here.

Harry is bone-weary, his head throbbing with a pressure headache, but as he looks at his opulent bed—a carved rock plinth, piled high with a down-stuffed mattress and layer upon layer of the same glossy, feather-light fabric—he knows that he won't be able to sleep.

The door to his room swings soundless behind him as he leaves. He's almost used to the muted glow of the fairy orbs now, and his feet are sure and steady as he picks his way down the corridor towards Malfoy's room. Before he can reach it, the door opens and Malfoy himself steps out. He's holding an empty water jug, and in his pale cotton pyjamas he looks incongruous and completely human and so very enticing against the uneven walls of the corridor. He's tired, though—Harry can read it in the tightness of his eyes and the faint purpling of shadow underneath. His heart suddenly, inconveniently, clenches with tenderness.

Malfoy's face brightens when he sees Harry, and he gestures with his jug. "Just filling this up! I have _such_ a headache. I always forget how draining Faoin Talamh is for our magic."

He trails off, and Harry knows it's because of what he can see written in Harry's face. Harry knows he should be approaching this with caution—after all, he's had a few hours to get used to his realisation—but Malfoy is totally unaware of any shift in their relationship. 

But Harry can't seem to stop himself—he's maddened with the breadth and heat of these feelings, absolute frantic with the need to let them show. Something about being below ground, maybe, but he's itching with a restless fervour, practically feral with it. 

He's in front of Malfoy now, chest-to-chest in the gloaming, and he places his hands flat and forceful against Malfoy's front so that he can feel the jump of Malfoy's stomach muscles, the skitter of a shiver that passes through him when Harry firmly but, oh! so gently pushes him back against the wall. 

Harry lowers his head ever so slightly, so that his words are captured by Malfoy's parted lips. 

"You," he says. "You…you…you…" again and again, and with every iteration he kisses Malfoy's mouth, nothing more than a mothwing brush of lips in the half-dark, but it's almost too much for him, and he dips his head further so his face is pressed into the soapy-clean sweetness of Malfoy's throat. 

Malfoy's hand, the one not still clutching the jug bewilderedly, comes up to move slow and soothing along the spar of Harry's spine. And then Harry presses his face a little tighter into the elegant tendon of Malfoy's throat, and he allows himself to taste—just the tip of his tongue following the desperate, sudden arch of Malfoy's neck. Malfoy swallows, and the sound is loud and shockingly erotic in the dead silence of the underground corridor. They pause, both holding themselves in check for a breathless moment, and then Malfoy is making an impatient flicker of wandless magic at the jug to send it spinning sideways onto the floor, and Harry is growling—actually growling—as he takes a fistful of Malfoy's nightshirt and pulls at it until the buttons pop and spill over his knuckles and, just like that, he's got an expanse of Malfoy's skin bared to his hands and mouth.

Harry's aware that he's already shaking with desire, cock hard and insistent against the press and roll of Malfoy's hips. Malfoy is whispering, desperate and incoherent—_Potter, no, we agreed…yes…we can't…there, yes…you_—though he's already sliding his hands up Harry's flanks with ferocious intent, and walking them both backwards towards who knows where. 

They end up in the alcove, of course, the wire and silk crushed heedlessly beneath the shift and scrabble of their feet. Once they're pressed close enough that they can share each other's shudders, they grow less frantic. Harry can't stop kissing Malfoy, though. He tugs Malfoy's lower lip into his mouth, soothes it with a lap of the tongue, and chases it back until their mouths meet again in a groan that's more gasp than sound. Over and over he kisses Malfoy, until Malfoy's mouth is kiss-swollen and languid and curved into his most secret and sated smile. 

It seems impossible, as Harry stands with one hand buried in Malfoy's hair and the other down his pyjama trousers, that they had agreed to stay away from each other for this trip. It seems laughable, as Malfoy slides to his knees and mouths at the wet spot on Harry's trousers, that they could maintain any professional distance from each other. It seems inevitable, as Harry kisses the taste of himself out of Malfoy's mouth, that they would end up skin to skin, taking each other apart, and gently putting each other back together. 

Underfoot, the ruin of the silk flowers shifts in a light breeze, but they're both too preoccupied to wonder how the wind could get in while they're forty fathoms underground.

* * *

The next few days are a whirl of activity for Harry, while Malfoy spends hours every day at the conference table, discussing the rights of Magical Beings and working to come up with terms of accord that the Sidhe deem acceptable.

Harry, meanwhile, is enjoying the pleasures of the fairy court. It's quite unlike anything he's ever known before, and he feels a bit like that too-small eleven-year-old standing in front of a wall of shifting bricks as the alley to another world opened up in front of him. He's not sure if it was his upbringing, or his temperament, but he still gets a thrill at the _magic_ of magic. He gets to ride the Francapall, the Sidhe steed, and is taken on a hunt by the wild fairy riders he saw on the first day. They spill off into one of the innumerable tunnels leading away from the court and emerge in another massive cavern, this one a forest of stalagmites and stalactites. Pools of still water gleam dully between the rock formations, their surfaces Sickle-smooth and burnished under the fairy light. 

They're hunting frogs, it turns out—the speciality for the following night's Fire Feast. Harry is quite sure that even riding a Thestral over the Thames wasn't quite as weird as crouching low over the muscular, writhing back of his steed, feeling the lash of its tail whistle through the air behind him, with one hand on the reins, attempting to lead the Francapall, and the other wielding some vicious, iridescent darts. The object of the hunt is to chase the frogs down, using the Francapall's speed and dexterity and peculiarly springy gait, and then to fling the darts in a deadly shower of gleaming light at the prey. This is easier than it seems, it turns out, because the frogs are the size of large cats, and are the bright bluish-white of lightning in the night sky. They are fast, though, and before long Harry and his steed are at the raucous, seething centre of the gang of hunters, all of them wheeling around spiny protrusions of rock, skittering off the cave walls when they round corners too tightly, and drenched head to heel in that odd body-warm water from the pools they splash through.

In the end, Harry isn't able to kill any frogs, though the Sidhe laugh at him for his tender-heartedness and jostle him gently when they pass. They have no such compunction, and each hunter bears several brace of game when they splash home tiredly to wash up for dinner. 

The negotiations are just breaking for the day when the hunt trails back into the cavern. Harry is still flushed with exertion, hair tangled and dropping from its tie, wet through, tide-marked with mud, and gleaming faintly from the mineral residue on the walls of the forest cavern. When he dismounts, his legs nearly give way—it turns out that years of hobby flying aren't nearly enough preparation for the feat of spending a day keeping himself anchored to the undulating back of a horse-rat creature that refuses to wear a saddle. He has a moment of profound gratitude that there is no formal feast arranged for that night. He's ready to have a tray of something simple sent to his room so that he can eat and then sleep.

Malfoy is at the head of the delegation, as usual, and when he sees Harry he stops still and just laughs uproariously. He's beautiful like that, head thrown back in amusement, neck bared, face open and gleeful. Harry feels rather than sees the curious looks from the other delegates, though soon they're all laughing too. Malfoy's amusement is contagious, it seems. Harry feels hopelessly fond of him.

They haven't had a chance to talk properly since Harry realised how he felt. The days are long, and the nights even longer, with festivities stretching out for hours under the timeless glow of the orbs. Being in the Sidhe court is proving draining, magically speaking—the fairy wards do indeed thrive on borrowed power, and it's a constant, low-level effort for the wizards to keep their magic contained. Fairy magic is odd, and uncanny, and ancient beyond measure, but something primal in it sings to their magical cores. They must keep that pulsing, vibrant force reined in, lest it sink into the living walls of Faoin Talamh and be absorbed by the hungry earth. It's hard work, and by bedtime Harry is often drained and fighting yet another headache.

What's more, Malfoy is refusing to spend much time alone with Harry. He seems to think that it's unprofessional of them. Harry thinks of the previous evening, when Malfoy had hardly shut the bedroom door before Harry had him pinned against it, and where he kept him until Malfoy was gasping and incoherent, swearing and shivering under Harry's hands and mouth—well, he supposes Malfoy has a point about that.

So Harry is pleasantly surprised when Malfoy, still laughing, slings an arm casually around his neck and snorts, "Looks like the frogs came out on top today, Potter!" Which brings a fresh gale of laughter from the delegates, and even the Queen, playing a dice game with her courtiers nearby, seems more bemused than disapproving at the display. He rolls his eyes, pretending offence, but he leans further into Malfoy's solid, familiar warmth before they part, Malfoy's fingers a seductive whisper along Harry's collarbone as he pulls away. 

They're barely even subtle about it, that evening. Malfoy walks companionably beside Harry until the rest fall away behind them. And then they're passing Malfoy's door and going on to Harry's, and Malfoy is crowding in, peeling off his work robes to reveal the pristine white shirt and charcoal trousers below. Malfoy strips Harry efficiently, with a combination of his precise wandless work and a solicitous, gentle touch of hands. When Harry is naked, shivery and restless and slick with mud, Malfoy takes him into the adjoining wet room and rolls up his own sleeves. Harry can do nothing but tremble into the touch of Malfoy's hands and the warm lick of the honest-to-Merlin waterfall that serves as a shower facility. 

Malfoy washes him down, hands moving measuredly across the straining breadth of Harry's shoulders, fingers raking through the hair at his underarms and groin with shocking intimacy, thumbs circling over the sluggish muscles of his thighs. Harry is overwhelmed by the sensation, suddenly bone-weary and so pathetically grateful for the affection that he wants to cry. Malfoy is soaked by the time Harry is finally clean, shirt translucent and hair swooping in a rakish lick over one eye. 

Then he's shepherding Harry to the bed and murmuring a gentle warming charm, while sending his own clothes fluttering into a neat stack, until they pile into the bed together, limbs entangled. Harry is already being dragged under into a profound sleep when Malfoy whispers, "We're so close to finishing here. Home soon, Potter," and before Harry can stop the words tumbling out, he tells Malfoy that he wants him to stay, and Malfoy is laughing, just a little bit, low and confiding, and he says that he supposes it doesn't make so much difference now they're so close to an agreement on terms. And then he says, "And anyway your bed is far more comfortable than mine," and slings an arm out to haul Harry into him.

It's only when his face is tucked snugly into the delicious space just behind Malfoy's ear that Harry feels brave enough to say what he had really meant. That he wants Malfoy to stay when they're back above-ground too; that he wants him like this, that he wants more—not all the time, not every night if Malfoy doesn't want that, but as much as they can manage. More than they've tried before. And maybe—and it's here that Harry gets flustered and a bit rambling—maybe they could, well, give what they have a name? Call it something? 

"Because I've been yours for quite a long time now, I just didn't call it that. And I'd really like you to be mine, too."

Malfoy is quiet at that, and his shoulders get a bit rigid and tense, but he doesn't get up and leave, and after a beat, his hand resumes its steady stroke along Harry's ribcage. 

"Potter," he begins hesitantly, "you should know that there isn't anyone else, for me—that is, I'm not…romantically…I have no other…commitments. I know we've never formally declared ourselves, but…I am very, well, happy—with you." 

Harry is watching him through half an eye, most of his face still buried in the safety of Malfoy's neck, and he can see that Malfoy looks mildly taken aback at that statement, as though it's a surprise to him that he might get to feel content. 

"But Potter, what we have together is working so well. We put a label on this, and start flaunting it around Diagon—well, people will stop taking us seriously. They'll make a fuss about our working relationship and find some way to undercut our professionalism and they'll skew things beyond recognition. It doesn't seem…prudent to invite that sort of intrusion."

And Harry sees it, of course—they're the same arguments he's made to himself a hundred times before, but he thinks this time that he'll start trying to work on convincing Malfoy to think around the obstacles and start looking at the finish line. But he's yawning, a cracking great gape of the mouth that he can't control, and his eyes are heavy and he's so, so warm. So he contents himself, just for now, to press a sleepy kiss to the creamy flesh over Malfoy's breastbone, and he mutters, "Mine," once more before sleep snatches him away.

* * *

Morning breaks above-ground, Harry presumes, but in Faoin Talamh the only sign of a new day is the increase in noise and bustle in the corridor outside his room. Harry stretches and blinks and yearns for the kiss of dawn light. Malfoy is still there, and still asleep, and Harry takes all the time he can to just look at him, serene and softened by sleep. He watches Malfoy until he feels himself slipping back under the mantle of sleep too, and wakes who knows how much later to Malfoy's thumb at his nipple and Malfoy's delicious weight straddling his thighs. Which is how they end up being very late for breakfast, and Malfoy has to slip in beside the other delegates with a flustered pink flush high on his cheeks, and one recalcitrant tuft of hair at the back of his head sticking out disobediently, despite the application of many of Malfoy's increasingly panicky grooming charms.

The day passes easily—Harry is feeling languid and relaxed, and the court stages a tournament and insists he take part. It's a diverting game, involving whacking a ball with beautifully shaped ash sticks, hotly disputing every move made by the opposite team, and implementing a diverse range of cheating mechanisms. It's fun, and Harry is pleasantly puffed out and warm by the time they break for lunch. Not long after, the delegates all arrive, looking giddy and self-satisfied. The negotiations are over, just like Malfoy had hoped—both parties have come to an agreement on the terms of a political alliance. They've worked out arrangements for cultural exchanges, some preliminary trade deals, and the entry of the Sidhe into the Magical Beings Alliance that was formed in the aftermath of the last war. It's a coup for Malfoy, getting such a magically powerful group to join the alliance. Harry is desperately proud.

The atmosphere at the Fire Feast that evening is upbeat. The Sidhe are glorious, painted face and body with iridescent mineral powders that make them glimmer like fallen stars. They've insisted on having their visitors dress in traditional Sidhe costumes, and Harry has to suppress a distinctly unprofessional whimper when he sees Malfoy, lean arms and bare shoulders luscious and creamy against the misty grey gossamer silk. Harry has been put in purple, that blackish plum of the inside of a mouth after too much red wine, and his eyes are a blazing, grassy green above the unfamiliar tone. With his hair unbound and full beard, he barely recognises himself in the looking glass—his smile is wild, his scar livid, the lean muscles of his arms a stark contrast to the filmy flow of the fairy robes. 

Course after course is served, toast after toast is made. All the visitors stick to drinking only water, of course, but etiquette demands that the toasts have to be made with alcohol. The goblets, brimful of potent _uisce beatha_, are raised again and again, the wizarding folk discreetly pretending to sip and the Sidhe just as discreetly pretending not to notice. 

All the visitors are seated at the top table, tonight. Malfoy is next to Fíachu, and the two have managed to rekindle their strong friendship, judging by the amount of laughing and intent talking they're doing. Harry's glad for them—he is.

When the last of the food has been enjoyed, and the wild leap of the fiddle and the ululating call of the tin whistle signal the start of the dancing, Harry is both surprised and nervous to find the space at his shoulder filled by the Queen herself. She's sweetly solicitous, enquiring about the hospitality he has received, and wondering whether he enjoyed his time in Faoin Talamh. She is impeccably polite and a gifted conversationalist, drawing Harry into long discussions about the traditions of the Sidhe and how their culture and pastimes differ from those of the wizarding world. Harry has an enjoyable ten minutes of telling her about Quidditch, though he suspects from her gentle queries that she knows far more about the game than she's letting on. She laughingly leads him in another toast, this time to "our sticks and the sport we derive from them," which Harry is pretty sure is her mildly taking the piss but which he gamely responds to anyway, raising the goblet in front of his lips to hide his smirk.

When they're on their feet, she murmurs, "Walk with me," and despite the musical cadence of her voice, it's clearly a command rather than a request. 

They stroll around the edge of the dancefloor, and she speaks sombrely of Harry's role in the war, and his career since then. Her questions are probing without being intrusive, her opinions on the rise of Voldemort and the subsequent political shake-up are incisive and challenging. She's fascinating.

Harry's leaning in to hear her better over the frenetic music by the time they reach a small ante-room, and she asks him to keep her company while she rests a while. Draco passes by, a whirl of clasped hands and stamping feet as he throws himself into an eight-person set dance. He spares the time to raise a sardonic eyebrow at Harry and his companion, but is gone again at the next call of the melodeon. 

"And dear Mr Potter, while I have you to myself, may I ask you to bestow a small favour upon this humble monarch?" She's smiling so sweetly, and he drops into a bow as he tells her he'll be happy to assist her in any way she deems fit.

"It is a small matter for a wizard of such skill and renown as your good self, of course—but I have heard tales even this far below the ground of the beauty and majesty of the stag you can conjure. Your spirit creature, is it? The essence of your soul's delight? Such a spell would delight the eyes of even such a woman as myself, who has lived far longer than you could imagine, and seen wonders far beyond the stretch of your world. Would you call him forth for me, here?"

And Harry can't see the harm, though he reins his magic in to keep his Patronus close and manageable when he casts. At his words, Prongs springs forth from the tip of his wand, and stands shimmering in front of the Queen. His noble head is held aloft, his body strong and forceful as he begins to trot around the small chamber. The walls around him reflect the glow of him back at them, and he looks more magical than Harry has ever seen him.

The Queen is laughing outright now, clapping her hands in delight. With the gleeful light in her eyes, and her laugh pealing around the room, she seems childlike and so soft. Harry can't help but laugh in return.

"Oh, Mr Potter, this is truly breath-taking. What a wonderful sight. I can only imagine the skill and fortitude of the wizard who can create such glory out of a wand. Thank you for allowing me to witness it, Mr Potter—and, if I may?" As she speaks, she's moving, circling around Prongs who has stilled and has his head raised, as if scenting the air. 

Then she puts a hand out, palm up and fingers splayed, unthreatening, and she touches Harry's Patronus. 

He gasps—he can't help it—because he can _feel_ her touch. It's gentle, and feels benign, but there's something there—Harry can feel it where he's never felt anything before. It's a tickle down the back of his neck, a light nudge at the very core of him. And the whole time, her hand is moving steadily, stroking up and down, up and down along the stag's neck. Harry can't stop watching. 

"It's no wonder our Ambassador is so taken with you, Mr Potter. Such a wonderful man, and so dedicated to his work. It is good to see him finding happiness with one as proficient as yourself. I had hoped, at one point, that he had formed an attachment to my son…oh, don't look so concerned, Mr Potter! That's all water under the bridge now, and judging by his displays of affection towards you in every alcove and bedchamber of my palace, he doesn't seem to be pining for Fíachu." Her laugh is a tinkle of bells, light and brittle. Harry feels a distant sort of mortification, but he's still revelling in the foreign and oddly soothing sensation of the Queen's touch rippling through from his Patronus, and he only has half a mind on their conversation. 

She continues talking and stroking, talking and stroking. Prongs is quiet now, head bowed beneath her ministrations, eyes closed contentedly.

"But forgive me—there hasn't been any formal declaration between…? No, of course not—and I'm sure that you have very good reasons for keeping things private between you two. It wouldn't do for the dashing young Ambassador to seem tied into a casual relationship of course! And I'm sure he is very fond of you deep down. And please don't trouble yourself about all the time he's been spending with my son these last few days. I have no doubt that their intentions are honorable, and of course they have years of a deep and abiding friendship to maintain."

She sighs. The sound is almost sad, and Harry wonders when the room got so quiet. He can still hear the music, and see the wash and wane of the dancers, but it seems distant and remote. Outside, Malfoy and Fíachu pass by on the dancefloor. The dance has slowed now, and they're chest-to-chest and hand-in-hand, faces so close that they can't possibly be noticing anything but the other. 

Harry gets a stab of jealousy so sharp that it feels almost physical. He keeps watching, eyes narrowed, and all the time he wonders if perhaps there's another reason Malfoy hasn't made their relationship official. Perhaps Malfoy has changed his mind about Fíachu. Perhaps being here in the court has reminded him of how tender and loving and open his dark-eyed fairy boy is. Perhaps Malfoy has had enough of work-obsessed, argumentative, emotionally-stunted reluctant celebrities. 

The anger follows, a cold tide of rage quaking through him. Because he wants Malfoy, for fuck's sake—it's all he's ever wanted, really, since he started allowing himself to want things. And it's not as if he's asked for much, is it? Just, not to die (and see how that worked out, never mind that it didn't really stick). And a family that loves him—and well, he has the Weasleys of course, and they love him in their distracted, chaotic way, but it's not like they don't have enough wayward boys already. So why should this be snatched away from him too?

The Queen's voice is a grounding hum, bringing him back to himself. "Of course, for a wizard such as yourself, it would be but the smallest effort to draw him back to you, if that was what you wanted. Yes, I see him gazing at my son out there,"—Harry grits his teeth—"but his head can be turned back. It's not even a spell, as such, more of a suggestion. A light bond to tether yourselves to each other anew. Nothing that can change your feelings or warp the mind, but just a little enforced nearness—just to remind him of your common interests, get you spending some time together. Nothing _permanent_ of course, oh no no. Yes, I know you're probably not familiar with it, but it's an easy little frippery, I can teach you in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Yes? Yes! A toast then!"

She raises her glass to him, smiling encouragingly. Her other hand is buried in the stag's coat. Harry feels sluggish and tired, so tired—tired of losing things, tired of wondering what to do, tired of not taking what he wants. His own goblet dangles forgotten from his fingers, and he hefts it aloft. It's heavy.

Her smile is blazing now, and the stag is kneeling at her feet. "To your heart's desire, Harry Potter. To the taking, and the keeping!"

Harry nods, tilts the glass, and shuts his eyes. Why not, he thinks. Why not? He raises his goblet, the rim sharp and icy at his lower lip. He prepares to drink.

It's the disturbance in the atmosphere that he notices first, the way the upward movement of Malfoy's arm displaces the air before the force of the slap of his hand knocks the goblet away from Harry's mouth. It spins away, strikes the Queen hard in the chest, and ricochets onto the floor. The glass shatters on the ground, light winking from the thousand tiny crystal shards. The _uisce beatha_, mercifully undrunk, spreads across the floor like mercury.

Harry looks up. The Queen is still standing, and he can't imagine how he ever thought her smile could be sweet. It's razor-sharp, blistering, triumphant. He turns his eyes to Malfoy, Fíachu beside him. Malfoy is trembling, face bled clean of all colour, eyes burning. His hand is still raised, the tremors of the force behind his strike still reverberating through it.

When he speaks, he sounds exactly like the Malfoy of sixth year, the chilling tone of his voice echoing back at Harry from a bathroom floor and a train compartment and a vanishing cabinet. 

"Well, Potter. Now you've gone and fucking done it."

* * *

Harry and Malfoy aren't exactly stuck in a fairy jail, but they're in the closest thing to a fairy jail that the Sidhe can justify without causing a diplomatic incident. 

Immediately following the moment where Malfoy had knocked the goblet away before Harry could drink, the Queen had called out for her court and accused Malfoy of committing _lèse-majesté_ (which, as Malfoy had hissed viciously out of the corner of his mouth to a dumbstruck Harry, had been considered a crime in Sidhe society since before their laws had even been written down). Never mind the fact that everyone knew the wizards weren't really drinking the toasts, it was apparently a grievous insult and a diplomatic incident to explicitly reference the fact that Sidhe whiskey was as poison to the visitors. And Malfoy, in his "act of violence against the person or integrity of the monarch" was subject to the laws and justice of the Sidhe. 

This, of course, has sparked outrage amongst the wizarding delegation, while the Sidhe grew restless and resentful, and several armoured guards appear as if from nowhere to flank the Queen. The atmosphere is hostile. 

The Ard Brithem has been summoned, and while the arguments wage between fairy and wizardkind, the Queen has moved everyone except Malfoy and Harry out from the little anteroom, and placed shimmering wards across the entrance, "for the sake of the Ambassador's continued safety and well-being."

Malfoy is still in a snit, stalking around the chamber and occasionally whirling around to point accusingly at Harry, before growling with incoherent rage and resuming his pacing.

Eventually he seems to come to a resolution, and even as he mutters, "Well, this isn't going to get us out of here," he drags Harry over to the chairs and pushes him to sitting.

"Right. First off. Have you absolutely lost your tiny fucking mind, you unmitigated twat?"

Harry can't help it, and he knows he's only making things worse, but he has to laugh a bit. In terms of being endearing, Malfoy swearing and angry is second only to Malfoy swearing and turned on. 

Malfoy is pinching the bridge of his nose, and taking deep breaths. When he looks up again, he's calmer, and his eyes are imploring. 

"Potter, this is bad. This is really bad. I need you with me on this. You really were about to drink that, weren't you? Despite everything I told you! And that really was your _Patronus_ that she had her grubby paws all over? _What were you thinking?_"

Harry isn't sure how he can begin to tell Malfoy that he hadn't been thinking of anything at all except his own maddening jealousy. The whole incident seems fuzzy, but when he thinks of it he remembers Malfoy's face upturned to Fíachu's as they danced too close, and the quivering blade of his own envy.

There's nothing for it, though. Things are looking dicey, and he knows that Malfoy needs to know everything. He cringes a bit, internally, then takes a breath and says, "She offered to teach me a little spell, something small, just temporary—nothing that would have changed our feelings for each other, but just something to build on what we already have together and maybe get us to take things more…seriously?" He trails off, growing increasingly embarrassed as Malfoy looks more and more incredulous.

"Potter. Are you telling me that you and the Queen were planning to cast a…a love spell? On me? Oh, a bonding spell, well that's so much fucking better! You are a selfish prick, do you know that?"

And Malfoy has always known how to push Harry's buttons, and all of a sudden Harry is spitting with rage and on his feet. Because _Harry_ wasn't the one insisting that he was happy one minute, and then saying he wanted to keep their relationship a secret the next. And _Harry_ wasn't the one prancing around the dancefloor in another man's arms, was he? 

"It wasn't going to change anything!" He's shouting now and is only dimly aware that it's not the most efficient use of their time. "It would have just meant us keeping close together, for a little while. Spend some quality time together, maybe have you stay the night for once instead of fucking off after we shag?"

Malfoy sneers. "And what did you think would happen, Potter? Force us together, cast a spell that probably causes pain, or damage to our magic, if we move too far away from each other? Maybe ensure that we have to share the same bed, shower together? And what—we'd realise we were madly in love and it would all end happily ever after? You utter cock! That sort of spell is bad news, Potter. Enforced proximity? You of all people should know that the most important part of a relationship is the fact that you have agency, that you _decide_ to be together. That you choose each other, free and clear.

“How can you even call it a relationship, if it's forced upon you in any way? That's not love, that's a prison."

He says it quietly, like he's thought about this before, and all of a sudden, Harry feels ashamed. And Malfoy's right, of course—Harry misses Malfoy when he's not around, and he wishes he saw more of him (though that's as much his own fault as Malfoy's), but he's never doubted that Malfoy wants to be with him, before. He loves that they have a give and take, that they allow each other to develop and grow, even if that means they have to spend more time at work than with each other. The whole thing suddenly seems horrifyingly stupid.

"I'm sorry," Harry says, and he means it. "I don't know what came over me—I was watching you dancing with Fíachu and being a total prat and just feeling a bit jealous and…"

Malfoy's head snaps up. "Dancing with Fíachu? Potter, I wasn't dancing with Fíachu, or anyone, since I saw her bring you in here. The whole time you were talking, I was lurking outside the door, pretending to chat to the Irish minister but actually trying to see what she was doing with you. She had some sort of privacy charm up though, I couldn't hear a thing. When she touched your Patronus I nearly barged in there, but there were wards in place. I had to go and find Fíachu and give him some sort of guff about wanting a proper chat somewhere quiet to even get near the place—the wards are all keyed to him of course. And I was only _just_ in time, Potter—if you had drunk that toast…"

He trails off with a shudder. Harry can't help but mirror it—he can't imagine what he was thinking, and the more he tries to figure it out, the more confused he feels. 

"Hang on a minute, Malfoy. If you weren't dancing with Fíachu, then what the fuck was that? I saw you, you were dancing right in front of the doorway."

"I assure you that I wasn't, Potter. I was, in fact, plastered to the wall outside trying to see and hear everything without appearing like I was trying to see and hear everything. I could see the whole dancefloor. If I had done a merry gavotte past myself, I think I would have noticed."

Then he's whitening up again, and his mouth gets tighter. 

"That crafty, conniving… Potter, this important—what were you doing when you saw me?"

Harry tries to think back, through the jumble of feelings to the actual events. 

"I was sitting, chatting. She was talking about us—she knew about us, did you know that? And I was feeling tired, but she was soothing, the way she was stroking the stag. It was lovely, actually, so relaxing—I've never been able to feel anyone touching my Patronus before."

Malfoy swears, creatively and at length. 

"I knew she was up to something. So she got you to cast—not a little piddly spell, but something big. Something that would take a whole blast of power. Oh, I'm sure you're going to tell me you pulled your spell, but even undercasting, you're going to generate more power than most of us at full strength. And then she waltzed right up there and started just siphoning your power right under your nose? How could it not have occurred to you that being able to feel her through your spell meant that something must have been off about the whole thing?! You're supposed to be the best in the business when it comes to curses but you didn't even notice when she just stuck her hands right into your magic?

“And then as she was drawing all that lovely juice out, just enough to weaken you up a bit, get you fuzzy, she hit you with some kind of fairy guile. A suggestibility spell or something, probably as mild as could be or you _would_ have noticed. And then planted some idea about Fíachu and me in your head, while your defences were down, and lo and behold we just happen to waltz past the door. She's the Queen of the Sidhe, Potter. She could probably conjure up a perfect facsimile of Shacklebolt in fairy wings and a tutu, without even blinking. Well that's just bloody brilliant. Lovely of you to just give her access to all your weird little insecurities. And then she tried to get you to drink, knowing that it would have meant you staying in Faoin Talamh forever, or dying back aboveground."

He's shaking his head, that delicate furrow between his brows deepening further.

"The question is, why? What would she want with you, Potter?"

* * *

The trial, such as it is, is swift and brutal. The Ard Brithem seems sympathetic, but the facts cannot be refuted. Malfoy _did_ wage an insult against the Queen; he did break a toast; he did in fact cause a missile to strike the Queen—she has the bruise to show for it. No matter that the rest of the delegates call for moderation, shout that Malfoy should retain diplomatic immunity—the Sidhe are inexorable and entirely rigid. Malfoy is guilty—the Queen herself can speak the sentence. 

Harry is cold with shock, desperately wondering what to do next. He didn't think things could get worse, until he hears the Queen's pronouncement.

"Draco Malfoy, in light of the long friendship we share, and the alliance between our peoples, we are inclined toward leniency. We value the friendship of the wizarding community highly, and we believe that justice should foster wisdom, not punish ignorance. To further our common goals of friendship and unity, we decree that you should enter into a bonded union with a member of our community, to ensure fealty to our kingdom and demonstrate your willingness to improve relations between wizarding and Sidhe societies. This union shall be dissolved at the close of a five year term, if both parties so desire. However, we should advise that the breaking of the bond oath while it is in place is punishable by death under Sidhe law.

“As a sign of our deep esteem for your position in the wizarding Ministry, and your staunch friendship, we offer one of our finest and most noble young courtiers as your bonded partner. We trust that you will not find him unpleasing."

A mere flicker of her eyes sideways and the crowd shifts to allow someone through. Then Fíachu is standing beside his mother. He looks pale and faded and utterly miserable. As Harry and Malfoy stare at him, aghast, he raises his chin and sets his mouth and nods at his mother, and stays silent.

Harry can only be thankful that he's still behind the wards with Malfoy, because it means at least that he can grab Malfoy when Malfoy blanches and sways as if he's going to fall. The rest of the delegates are frantic by now, shouting and pulling wands, and the Queen rolls her eyes in a gesture that's suddenly and shockingly human, and claps her hands for silence.

"I grow weary of this chatter. You—wizards! Go back to your leaders and tell them that we of the line of the Tuatha Dé Danann will hold our word and keep to the agreed accords. We have passed a lawful sentence upon this man. Justice shall be served, and he will not be met with unkindness here. Now, farewell."

She flicks her fingers at them in a desultory gesture of dismissal, and they grow indistinct before dissolving and disappearing. Harry presumes they've been returned aboveground, and has a moment of fervent hatred for the Queen for making them all walk for hours through the hill to get here, when apparently she could have just snapped her fingers and summoned them all here as easy as winking. Every second of this mission has been an exercise in her particular brand of manipulation, he's realising now.

Now it's just them left, Harry and Malfoy and the Queen and Fíachu, and a handful of Sidhe milling about. Malfoy is quieter than Harry has ever seen him, sitting with his bare arms clasped around himself. The Queen walks across the room, to the place where her wards ripple and shimmer, and stands in front of them.

"I'll be sending you back now, too, Mr Potter. But before you leave, I just wanted to thank you for your assistance. You were invaluable in my quest to ensure that the Ambassador's visit to us was extended somewhat." She smiles that smile again, the vicious one that reminds Harry just how far underground they are. 

"You don't have children, do you, Mr Potter? I have seven sons—all men of beauty, courage, and talent. Only one of them has ever yearned for a life beyond our bounds, has ever looked above to find his happiness. My third boy. Of all of them, he is the one with the softest and most staunch heart. He has never loved easily, but he loves your fierce little dragon. I pleaded with him to turn his eyes and heart back to us, but he has been lost these long years past. And I cannot bear to let him go—he would wither and fade up there with your kind. I needed to find a way to keep him here, and bring his joy to him.

“I had hoped—so much!—that being back here with Fíachu would remind the Ambassador of the long love he bore my son. Alas, when you arrived I saw this could not be. For he was clearly bound up in you, and to my surprise, you in him also. But my son was adamant that you had not reached an understanding, that the Ambassador was still free to love another. 

"We have questing spells that can determine these things for us. Imagine my relief when I determined that it was indeed true, you two had never made a claim upon each other."

Harry remembers that creeping prickle of magic, almost imperceptible, when he had his first audience with the Queen. He scowls at her. She continues with her story blithely, as though discussing the weather. 

"This was fortunate for my plans, as if the Ambassador had already entered a formal union—been wedded, or been claimed as a life partner—then under Sidhe law he could not enter another union. However, I could see that there would be no easy way to convince him to bond with my son, yet without him, my son would pine and yearn forever. As a mother, this was an intolerable prospect.

"I had to think of something, and you made it so easy for me, you two besotted boys. Everything written all over your faces for everyone to see! I just knew that he would do anything for you. It was so easy to get him to put himself in the way of my wrath for you. He didn't even think about it for a second—when he saw you about to drink from that goblet, his heart compelled him to defy me. He committed a grievous crime against a foreign monarch without even blinking. It was beautiful."

Harry's eyes are prickling, either in rage or sadness, and he scrubs at them impatiently. "He _knew_ you were up to something dodgy. So you would have the son you proclaim to love so much shackled to a man that you've had to force into a sham marriage? I wouldn't exactly call that a happily ever after, would you?"

She blinks at him, like this isn't something she's even considered. 

"You speak of happily ever after, Harry Potter, but you don't know how to handle your heart. The Ambassador does not need to love, to form the bond. He will be loved enough for both of them. Five years is a long time, Mr Potter. My son is generous in every way—I would be surprised if his Draco did not learn to appreciate that over time.

"And you, Mr Potter—you would do well to learn from our ways. You think you close your heart off from the world. Yet I have seen you and the Ambassador, in the corridors of my own kingdom, pouring your whole heart into a look, a kiss. And yet you never thought to claim him as your own! Faugh, your foolish pride has undone you."

She's glowing with triumph, and she turns her back and walks over to Fíachu, who still looks shamefaced and shaken. With a careful tenderness, she sits with him and cups his chin in her hand. He smiles at her, slow and sad and hopeful. 

Harry is dazed, vibrating with rage and bitterness. He looks at Malfoy, pale and insubstantial as he stares unseeing at the ground. _It's not fair_, Harry wants to howl. _I want to keep him, he's mine. Mine, mine, mine!_

Suddenly, with a surge of adrenaline so strong it nearly floors him, Harry remembers something. 

"Ard Brithem!" he shouts, "I demand an audience with the Ard Brithem!"

The Queen looks up sharply, comes to her feet, but he can see that the Ard Brithem is already moving towards him. She has an enquiring tilt to her head, and she wears an odd expression. Is that…sympathy? Harry wonders.

"Ard Brithem, I need your advice on a legal matter please. For the Ambassador to enter a soul bond, he would need to be unclaimed by any other? But what if I _have_ already made a claim for him?"

The Ard Brithem nods. "It is as you say, Mr Potter. Though it is not as simple as merely saying some words. The claim depends upon your intent—the feelings behind the claim have to have weight. Are you saying, Mr Potter, that you have in fact claimed the Ambassador for your own?"

Harry remembers the previous night with a hard swallow. His chest feels tight when he thinks of Malfoy with his hair dampened into burnished gold by water, the strong muscles of his forearms flexing as he washed Harry clean of mud. He remembers smoky eyes crinkling in amusement from across the pillow. He remembers pressing a kiss into Malfoy's skin as Malfoy's heart leapt under his lips. He remembers what he said to Malfoy before sleep pulled them under. He remembers. 

"I called him mine."

* * *

The Queen is furious, and the court is in uproar, and Harry can hardly bear to see the fragile flare of hope in Malfoy's eyes. But the Ard Brithem seems to approve, for she drops the barest shadow of a wink to Harry as she asks him to clarify his claim. 

He's embarrassed, still, fumbling his way through his feelings in front of half of the Sidhe court, but even if it's not quite life or death, it feels a bit like it. 

He tells them everything, in case any of it is important. About the years of friendship and support and spurring each other on and driving each other crazy. About how even when he wanted more, Malfoy has always been enough for him. 

He tells them about the talk with Fíachu, and about asking Malfoy if they could put a name on their relationship. He tells them about falling asleep with the taste of Malfoy's skin on his mouth, and the word _mine_ reverberating around the room they shared.

The Ard Brithem raises her hand to Malfoy and speaks a few words, the sounds unrecognisable to Harry. Her spell works, though—a faint glow pulses from him, radiating out from his heart centre. She nods decisively, almost to herself, and addresses Malfoy.

"He speaks the truth—there is evidence of a new soul bond here. Though it is tentative, not yet fully formed. Ambassador?"

Malfoy sighs, rolls his eyes (such a relief, Harry thinks, to see him gathering his disdain to himself like a shield). "Not fully formed," he confirms, "though not through lack of…affection between us." He slides Harry a glance, half-appalled and half-shy. "Potter and I don't need to make any claims upon each other. We don't need rings, or bonds, or even a label, to make what we have so important, and so fulfilling. No forced bond or false alliance can ever change that." 

He smiles straight at Harry then, that whole-hearted flash of delight that changes his face, that smile that so few people get to see. "It's a bad time to tell you that I love you for the first time, Potter. But there we have it."

* * *

The Ard Brithem is very clear. Harry definitely has a claim to Malfoy, and he should be allowed the chance to win his love back. The Queen is quietly furious, and quibbles about the unformed nature of Harry and Malfoy's bond, but the Ard Brithem stands firm. The Queen also tries to argue that Malfoy's punishment for his offence of _lèse-majesté_ should supersede Harry's claim on him, but the Ard Brithem merely cocks an eyebrow in bemusement and the Queen falls silent. She knows that the Sidhe will never accept the severing of a love bond, even for their Queen's sake.

The Ard Brithem suggests that an alternative punishment shall be meted out to the Ambassador—in the interest of the Queen's express desire to maintain cordial relations with wizarding kind, and her promise of leniency, a fine of fifty thousand Galleons would be an appropriate sentence. The Queen looks calculating, but money is one thing that Malfoy has plenty of, and Harry has never been so grateful for the steadfast impartiality of the justice system. The Queen fumes, silently, but cannot overturn the judicial ruling. Harry has a chance.

The Queen is sneering openly when she makes her pronouncement. 

"I see, Mr Potter, that you have a deep and abiding love for the ambassador, and that he returns your esteem. In light of this extraordinary development, we recognise that we cannot perform a bonded union between the crown prince and the ambassador. 

“My son will step aside. Ambassador Malfoy is yours to keep, Mr Potter."

Harry tries to smile at Malfoy, but everything is blurry and indistinct. He blinks, shakes his head, trying to clear the fuzz. The Queen is still in sharp relief, however—and isn't that strange? She has the light of triumph in her eyes as she begins to speak again.

"As I say, Mr Potter—he's yours. You're welcome to him…if you can find him. You have one day and one night to prove your worth, oh Boy Who Lived. If you haven't found your way back to get him by then, we seal the way forever. Catch him if you can!"

She snaps her fingers, in that insolent gesture of dismissal, and before Harry can make a sound, he's standing on the grass of Ronayne's Court in the cool grey dawn of a new morning. His bare feet are slick with dew, and he skids into a turn to look at the unblemished stretch of hill in front of him. The road to Faoin Talamh is gone, the ground as blank and featureless as if there had never really been anything there in the first place.

Harry has been sent back aboveground.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

He spends the day pacing and casting, using every tool in his armoury to try to re-open the hill. It's an unseasonably warm day for Ireland in early May. Harry is still in his Sidhe robes, and before long he's glad of their gossamer airiness as the sun climbs higher and higher, and he works harder and harder to break into something that seems unbreakable.

By the fall of evening, he has to admit defeat. Every muscle in his body is quivering with exhaustion, the lean curve of his upper arms roped with veins from the effort of casting and re-casting. He's shaking with adrenaline. He has pushed every spell he knows at this place, teased around the nebulous edge of the Queen's wards. He's even managed to disturb them a little—he could see them bulging and flexing under the onslaught of his power. But to no avail.

The Irish Ministry sent a team to help, but even their specialised skills, local knowledge, and the weight of their combined casting couldn't puncture the protections in place. Harry feels despair deep in the pit of his stomach.

He knows he needs to rest, calm his jittering magic and recharge for one last attempt before the next dawn breaks. When he Apparates to the hotel, his exhaustion is so profound that he mis-directs himself, ending up at the foot of the hill rather than the top, where he can see the lights of the hotel calling him. A splash distracts him—he's on the slipway to the river, nearly toeing the waterline. He had very nearly Apparated into the river, and wouldn't that have been the perfect end to the day he's just had? 

He remembers walking past this same slipway with Malfoy, before all of this happened, Malfoy's hand a steadying weight against his own palm. The night they went gathering intel from Malfoy's magical creature friend, Pooka. And there it is—like a flash of lightning, it finally occurs to Harry that he _does_ know someone who can tell him how to get into Faoin Talamh.

"Pooka!" He's bellowing now, sliding further down the slipway, the cold water kissing first his knees, then thighs, robes swirling like seaweed in the current. He fumbles through the leather pouch at his waist, hoping against hope, but he's left all his money in his own clothes. The only thing he finds in his pouch is a small, misshapen lump of milky feldspar. It's uncut and unpolished but Harry had found it himself when he went on the hunt—knowing how precious is it to the Sidhe, he had intended on having it set into a fob chain for Malfoy, as a souvenir of their trip. It's all he has, and he's muttering half-remembered prayers to a god he doesn't even believe in as he chucks it into the water and calls for Pooka again. 

The river is silent and slow tonight, but Harry tastes a brackish tang as first one drop, then a shower of them, splash up onto him out of new eddies. And then the Lee parts with a roar and Pooka rears up, his black coat scored with runnels of river water. Harry almost sobs with relief, and he throws his arms around Pooka's broad neck as they float together in the wash of the current.

* * *

It's a matter of only a few moments to explain everything to Pooka, even accounting for his creative and long-winded insults towards the Queen, her sons, and every one of her Sidhe antecedents all the way back to Danu herself. Pooka swims to the slipway, and uses his enormous head to nudge Harry out of the water and up onto the road. He lets Harry lean against him as they stand, facing the cliff with the river whispering behind them.

"Little wild one, you must know that I cannot bring you to Faoin Talamh myself? This is your journey, and you must find your own way. She expects you to fail, you are aware?"

Harry nods grimly, feeling that now-familiar jolt of pure rage.

"Look up, wizard." Pooka jerks his muzzle towards Beale's Hill where it juts out from the cliff face. "Your kind believes that place is named for a wizard taken as a changeling into the Sidhe realm, who returned aboveground and spent his days pining here for his lost home. But this is just a fairy story, though in the manner of these things, there is a kernel of truth at the heart of it.

"There was no Beale who gave his name to this place, though there _have_ been countless wizards and Muggles alike who have been lost forever to the fairy kingdom. No, this hill is named for something far more ancient, something that lives on from the time when the barrier between our world and the world of the fairies was much thinner. Now, the Queen can open up a door to fairyland whenever she pleases—just as she did for you at Ronayne's Court. But back then, there was one way in and one way out. Everyone knew where the entrance to Faoin Talamh was. Not many ever ventured there, for fear of never returning, but they knew of it. The magical world and the unmagical world sat happily side-by-side, in those days. We all respected each other, and there was little fear or mistrust."

Pooka nods meaningfully towards this hill. 

"I must away now, my friend. But let me tell you once more thing. In our language, the word _béal_ means mouth. And it's from that word that the hill takes its name."

Pooka's gone in a splash and a flurry but Harry barely notices. He's thinking of the crawling feeling of fairy magic when he and Malfoy climbed the hill that first night, the way he could feel the dead weight of it being pulled up from the ground below their feet. He knows what he needs to do.

A turn and a crack and he's at the top of the hill, with the river splayed out far below him. He palms his wand and starts moving down the hill, and he summons every subtle and visceral part of his magic to him. He's going to need it. 

As he walks, he sends his magic out, feeling around for the notch in the wards that he knows must be there. There's an expectant hum in the air, like the veil between the worlds is shivering, waiting to be brushed aside. He just needs to be able to slip in a fingertip of magic to prise the whole thing open, but he has to find it first. He's moving faster now, down the steep hill—he's on his tiptoes to keep his balance as he breaks into a run. His magic rushes out of him, flurries around the Sidhe wards—he can feel them as clearly as if he could see them.

His touch is featherlight, his magic working on instinct to find the weakest point in the wards and then it's there, right where he thought it would be, and he pushes just hard enough until he feels the click as the wards waver and disappear. He can't stop running, his feet barely skimming the stones now, improbably fast, a bit like flying, and then he really is hurtling through the air and he can see the entrance to fairyland opening up before him like a yawning chasm. It swallows him whole.

* * *

He seems to fall for ages, and then suddenly he slams to a halt on his knees in the middle of the Sidhe court. When he had imagined it, he had imagined that they would be sitting on ceremony, awaiting his arrival, the Queen in full regalia with her armed guards around her. 

What actually happens, of course, is that the Queen is really not expecting him to find his way in. She had created the road at Ronayne's Court, a feat of misdirection, so she was able to destroy it too. It was only her bad luck that Harry had found another door. 

She's at ease, listening to her minstrels and watching Fíachu playing cards. Malfoy is sitting nearby, arms crossed, wearing a look of bored impatience. It warms Harry, inexplicably, and as he stretches to standing, he sees Malfoy give a start as he notices Harry. The smile that spreads across Malfoy's face is so proud, and so satisfied, that Fíachu notices immediately. He follows Malfoy's gaze and then snaps to standing at the sight of Harry wincing and rubbing his knees. It's odd, Harry thinks, but under the shock he thinks he sees a flutter of relief pass over Fíachu's face.

Then Malfoy is moving and Harry is too, and the crowd is parting to let them forge a path to each other. Malfoy is solid and warm under Harry's hands, and when Malfoy murmurs, "I told that rotten hag that you were a tenacious bastard," Harry just has to bury his face in the notch of Malfoy's left collarbone lest the whole court notice the sudden prickle of joyful tears in his eyes. 

The Queen is furious, practically spitting with it. She looks positively lethal, and the more she rages the less human she looks. In the slightly-too-sharpness of her teeth, the slightly-too-opaque cast to her eyes, Harry feels the weight and rage of generations of foreign gods. She is terrifying, but she knows she has lost, and all of the Sidhe are there to witness it. 

Her voice is icy when she makes her proclamation.

"In the sight of this court I promised to cede this prisoner if Mr Potter succeeded in his quest to reunite himself with the Ambassador. It seems that Mr Potter's great power has not been overstated. I hereby decree that the Ambassador shall be released from his sentence, and shall instead be subject to the agreed fine of fifty thousand Galleons of wizard gold."

Fíachu causes a stir when he steps forward. His face, when he looks at Malfoy, is broken open with sadness. He drops to a knee, and lays his forehead to the back of Malfoy's hand. 

"Forgive me, Draco." His voice is muffled. "I would have taken the barest crumbs you would have offered me, and I would have loved you forever, but I would have hated myself for it in the end. I wish you joy, my dearest one."

Malfoy pulls his hand away, but his face has softened, and when he hefts Fíachu up to standing, his hands are gentle. 

The Queen looks heartbroken, and then glares at Harry. "You may step forward, so that the soul bond shall be performed."

"I don't think we will," Harry replies, and his wand is a moving blur in his right hand as he pulls Malfoy to him with his left. "He doesn't belong to me, nor I to him. I choose him, today, tomorrow, and every day of our lives, if he'll have me. But I'm not going to ask him to submit to some Sidhe spellcraft in order to walk out of here a free man. I want him to choose me, too. And having him as my prize for completing a quest—that's not how I want him. We leave Faoin Talamh together, as we entered it—as a team, as equals. And if we decide to complete this bond that we have at some point, that will be between him and me." And he pokes Malfoy in the ribcage and winks as he says, "I'd like that, just to be clear. A wedding, maybe? I forgot to tell you that I love you too, by the way."

Malfoy is flushed and giddy with laughter at Harry's side, and the Queen's voice is dripping with scorn. "Foolish children. You knew my terms—I shall not suffer your insolence over these matters. The bond is a condition of the commutation of your sentence, Ambassador. If you don't complete it, then you don't leave."

Malfoy spins so he's back to back with Harry, and his voice is wild with a sort of fierce joy when he replies, "Oh, I rather think we will be leaving. And if you're not opening the gate, then we'll just have to leave the same way Potter came in. Potter—shall we?" 

And then Malfoy's wand hand is sweeping and he's slamming up a Protego so strong that Harry actually sees people swaying in its aftershock. And the Queen's mouth is moving in an incantation, but Harry can't hear her over the roaring in his ears as he desperately feels around for that tiny chink in the main entrance wards. And when he feels it, and grasps at it, he gathers all his power to him, presses himself to Malfoy's back and clasps Malfoy firmly to him, and he _pushes_, hard and swift and inexorable.

Then with a sharp crack and that dizzying rush of raw power that Harry always feels when he casts at full force, they're ripping through the wards and spinning up and out, until the mouth of the entrance to the Sidhe kingdom spits them out right into the river and snaps shut with a decisive bang.

* * *

It takes them ages to struggle out of the water. Harry is exhausted, his magic enfeebled, and Malfoy just isn't a very good swimmer, apparently. They drag each other up onto the slipway just as the sky is pinking up with the kiss of dawn light, and collapse to sitting just above the waterline. 

Malfoy stares regretfully out at the water, and his voice is wistful when he says, "Do you know, I really thought we had managed to get the Sidhe onside this time. I don't suppose they'll keep to the terms of the Accord?"

Harry's doubtful look is enough of an answer, and Malfoy pulls a face. "Well Potter, if it wasn't for you, not only would I have been the first wizard to ever successfully negotiate a treaty with the Queen of the Tuatha Dé Danann, but I'd also be a fairy prince by now."

And then his eyes crinkle, mercury-bright in the rising sun, and he laughs until he shakes, leaning back on his elbows, face upturned and beautiful in the dawn of the new day. Harry turns to look at him speculatively.

"Well, I'm sure we could get you a little tiara? You already have the overbearing mother." He winces as Malfoy pokes him hard in the ribs. "And I definitely think you should wear some of these silky robes when I take you to the Ministry Yule Ball this year?"

Malfoy's eyes slide to him, and because he's Malfoy and he always understands exactly what Harry is _really_ saying, he nods firmly and slides a river-cool hand along Harry's thigh where the robes have ridden up. "Only if you promise to get these professionally Scourgified so we can go in matching ones."

Then he pulls Harry to standing, and takes a few seconds to look at him, holding Harry's face between his hands. He kisses Harry, briefly but greedily, with intent, and then slings an arm around his waist as they walk together up the slipway.

Harry asks mischievously, "So are we going to pop back next week to settle up your fifty thousand Galleon fine?"

Malfoy groans, before the ring of his laughter echoes back from the riverbank. 

"I'll let the goblins handle that, I think. Something tells me I'll be a bit too busy in the office next week for any more jollies."

Behind them, the water rushes on inexorably with the lick and curl of the current. All is quiet.

"Let's go home, Potter."

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the [H/D Tropes Exchange Fest 2019,](http://www.hdtropes.tumblr.com) posting August & September 2019! Leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed it!
> 
> A cara mo chara: This is pronounced phonetically, and means "oh friend of my friend"  
Ard Brithem: Erm, the best approximation of this is probably Ord Brih-ev (correct me if you know better please!)  
Béal: Bail  
Bealtaine: Byowl-tin-ah  
Clúrachán: Clue-rack-awn  
Faoin Talamh: Fween Toluv  
Fiachú: Fee-ah-coo  
Sidhe: Shee  
Tuatha Dé Danann: Too-ha Day Don-un  
Uisce beatha: ish-ka bah-hah
> 
> I'm @tackytigerfic on Tumblr - please come and say hello!


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